


From The Singed Earth

by Paranormal_Shitness



Series: Firebender Jet AU [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 3rd Person Limited, Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Azula is trying to have a good time and Jet keeps kink shaming her, Brother/Sister - Freeform, Casual Drug Use, Culture Shock, Dark Humor, Everyone’s a fuck up - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fan Art, Father/Daughter, Filler OCs - Freeform, Firebender! Jet, Hurt/Comfort, Hypnosis, Incest, M/M, Multi, Post Hypnotic Suggestion, Unreliable Narrator, brain washing, fucked up family dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2020-12-31 21:11:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 85,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21152276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paranormal_Shitness/pseuds/Paranormal_Shitness
Summary: Backed into a corner in the caves beneath Lake Laogai, Jet is forced to realize he’s not who he ever thought he was and a sympathetic Zuko offers to help him grapple with the truth through the haze of what the Dai Li did to his mind.(Author is uploading related sketches between commissions)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a fic i wrote like five years ago and never published but i found the files so i thought why not just edit and upload. It has 23 chapters and I have no idea if it’s finished or not but here goes.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fire Nation was green.

Of all the things Jet would have imagined of it, this was the last. People lived here. Real people. Or they looked like real people. Monsters hiding in human skin, pretending it was all normal. Well he knew better. 

Lee-l-lee-l-luko- Zuko shoved him and he stumbled, feet sliding on the metal of the gangplank. He caught his balance, and tried to turn around, pick a fight with the stupid prince. A warm hand struck across his cheek, and seized up around his bound wrists, shoving them into the small of his back and driving him forward.

The girl- his sister, was leading their way, spear heading the whole thing. She didn't so much as look at him. Hadn't since her brother had dragged him off the floor by his shirt and even then it had only been a cursory glance of distaste. She stopped on the dock to talk to someone who looked important. Probably some official. Jet couldn't keep his brain sharp enough to pick anything useful out of their words.

Lee was behind him, and it was comforting- Zuko was behind him, and it made him want to chew his arms off in order to get away. He was never going to get away. He tried not to look at the port. Tried not to look at the monster people all around them living their monster lives. He wanted to turn around and hide his face in Lee's shoulder- He wanted to turn around and bite Zuko's jugular vein out of his neck.

He kept his eyes on the toes of his boots. If he just focused he could escape. Just focus. He needed focus. 

Zuko's fingers tightened on his skin as they stepped off the ramp and onto the dock. A soldier approached them, back straight and footsteps clipped. "Do you need assistance in transporting the prisoner?" he asked. Jet felt Zuko stiffen behind him. 

"He's not a prisoner. He's my charge. I'll be taking him back to the palace," the prince hissed. Jet liked to imagine he saw that unshakable Fire Nation reserve flounder for a moment in the soldier before him, but it was honestly impossible to tell with the face guard on that helmet.

The broads that the princess kept around as her personal escort were somewhere behind the prince, and that made Jet more antsy as he was shouldered past the small crowd on the dock up toward a couple of odd boxes. Now, suddenly, he was being pushed through the red drapes.

"My sister will be taking the other palanquin with Ty Lee and Mai," the prince explained, and without looking at him he sounded like Lee for just a split second, his voice softened from the demands he made toward soldiers and his sister. Jet sneered at him, and burned the look of that Navy uniform into his eyes because so long as Lee was wearing that shit it was very clear that there was no Lee. Not really. That had been a lie. 

He wondered after a moment though, why the prince even felt the need to tell him this. Was it supposed to make him feel more comfortable, because it didn't. 

They lurched as they were lifted off the ground. Jet fumbled, but Zuko was completely unphased. It was clear he belonged here. Nothing had ever explained the enigma that was Lee so well as being with him after he turned traitor and showed his true color. Took the gloves off, and showed the blood on his palms. 

Jet sneered at him again. He was ignored. 

They were silent all the way up to the castle and it wasn't a short trip. Jet mused on why they hadn't used a ostrich-horse cart or something, but then it seemed that these people valued back breaking human labor over anything else. Zuko sat on the seat across from him and looked like pure evil the whole way. 

When the carriers stopped to let them out it was at a set of large red doors plated with gold filigree. This was a world like nothing Jet had ever seen before, and when he looked around, there were suddenly cliffs ringing the sky above them like smothering arms. The prince's hand found his wrists again, resuming their task of steering him in the right direction.

Numerous people dressed in stupidly expensive clothing filled the room beyond. Jet found himself swimming in a sea of red fabrics, wading in a deep sea of Fire Nation loyalists.

Azula did the talking, as Jet crowded close to Lee, very unsure of the whole of everything right then and there. That hand on his wrists warmed comfortably through the metal restraints. He'd wished they'd used rope, but Lee had taken the time to explain that rope wouldn't be good for him anymore. This was better. Jet couldn't quite remember why. But it was better. 

Before he knew what was happening, and why there were so many people, he was being shuffled off again through the palace. Azula was saying something about seeing "father". Jet knew instantaneously that he did not like this person, but for the moment couldn't place his mind on how. Things just kept coming and he was bowled over in the current. He felt like he was spinning through that earth kingdom town as the lake swallowed it up. The world was blurring together.

Lee broke them away from his sister's entourage after a while, and Jet found himself staring up at another pair of rather impressive doors as the other boy fished out a key from somewhere. It looked like an apartment inside. The fanciest apartment he'd ever seen. Jet didn't really bother trying to take it in though, too overwhelmed. Lee steered him inside and sat him down on a couch before stepping behind him once more and releasing the shackles.

His wrists felt raw where the metal had born against his skin, but Jet had not burned from the warmth of Lee's touch in the slightest.

"How are you feeling?" Lee asked.

"Fuzzy," Jet told him, still staring at his own wrists. 

"Do you want to get some rest, for now? I am to be presented to the public in about a half hour, but you're not obligated to be there by any stretch of the imagination," the boy explained. Jet looked at him, and saw that he was holding a Fire Nation shoulder plate between his hands. His shoulders suddenly seemed lean and delicate beneath the simple red shirt he was wearing. Jet wondered if maybe that was Lee's shoulder plate, but that didn't make sense.

Sleeping sounded good, but he didn't want to sleep. He hadn't wanted to sleep on the boat either. Hadn't been able to even. Lee had sat outside his cell for hours sometimes to make sure he could. But Zuko was here somewhere and things were dangerous. 

Jet shook his head. "Well regardless, I can't leave you unsupervised. Last time, you almost burned down the palace in Ba Sing Se."

Jet remembered that, but not how he'd started the fire at all. It seemed so complicated and convoluted, and his brain was getting truly sluggish with all the new information it was attempting to process. 

"Let me see those," Lee said, when he'd stripped down to just his pants and his boots. He knelt in front of Jet, dragging the other boy's wrists into his palms and inspecting them. His thumbs were warm and soft when he rubbed them soothingly against the irritated skin. "I'll get you some balm while I'm out," he assured.

Jet liked that. Of course Lee would take care of his leader. Just like a real Freedom Fighter.

He lost track of things, and next he knew, he was being led into a bedroom, sat down on a comfortable bed. He felt along the covers, and they were softer than anything he could remember touching. 

"Are you sure you don't want to sleep?" Lee asked.

Jet nodded, but he laid down anyway. He could feel Lee messing with his hand. That metal feeling was back, but he couldn't remember what it was, or where he'd felt it before. It circled round his wrist and held it close to the bedpost, but he didn't struggle. He didn't have the energy.

Lee was dressed in red and gold, and if Jet didn't hate that combination so much, he would have thought it looked damn good on him. It made Li look Fire Nation through and through standing over him like that though. It was ghastly. 

"Try to get some rest," he said, pulling his hair into a top knot, and slipping a pin into it. 

"Whatever, your majesty," Jet said sarcastically. Sleep had him already though, and the world was fading away as if he'd been gently lifted out of it.

He didn't have any understanding of how long he slept, but he woke up at some point to see a woman kneeling before him. She had a soft smile on her face, and he rubbed his eyes, trying to get them clear so he could understand what he was looking at. 

"The prince has asked me to run you a bath," she said calmly. Jet blinked at her. What prince was she talking about? Things looked very red for Ba Sing Se. The woman was wearing red and pink. She was red too. She fiddled with something above his head, and suddenly, she was pulling his hand free.

"I'll take you, alright?" she said, helping him to sit, and then stand. Her hands were gentle like nothing else, and they made Jet think about his mother. He missed her so much. The woman was beautiful, he decided. She was beautiful like his mother, and he loved her probably.

Other people joined them at some point as she lead him back through the main room, and into another one. A large tub had been filled with water that looked warm and inviting. Her hands were suddenly pulling at his clothes. He had the thought to tell her he was capable of undressing himself, but his words got lost on their way to his mouth.

The other people helped her, and he was stripped down to his skin, a bit confused. Collectively, they shuffled him toward the bath. The water felt good. They kept urging him into it until they'd pushed him down far enough that he was sitting, and the water kissed the crests of his shoulders.

He had half a mind to tell them he could wash himself, but they were already to work on that. He'd never been pushed and pulled in so many directions at once while naked. It was an interesting experience. They clipped his nails, and buffed callouses off his feet with jagged little rocks. One woman brushed through his hair with slow methodical tugs that actually felt nice. 

By the time it was over, he was cleaner than he was sure he'd ever been. They dried him, and then brought him a number of red fabrics. He was asked his opinion of each one, and he touched them each in turn, because he'd really never felt anything so well made. He picked the softest one, and they unfolded it into a tunic before slipping it over his head.

They put him in pointed shoes, and tightened a belt around his waist. Looking down, he wasn't what he remembered, and he felt naked without his armor. They brought him to a mirror next, and sat him down in front of it. His reflection wasn't him, and he stared it in the eyes almost fearfully as they brushed his hair again, and twisted it back into a tail that almost mimicked a top knot. If it had been just a bit longer, a man groused.

"What do you expect from a colony boy?" another one asked quietly. There was a titter of laughter as Jet stared confused at his own hands.

He didn't find the words to ask questions though, and once again he was shuffled out of the room. They sat him down on the couch where Lee had sat him before. 

"The prince will be back shortly," the woman who had woken him up told him. He nodded at her blankly. "He told us once we were through with you, we were to set up your rooms," she explained. He gave her what must have been a quizzical look, and she humphed at him before getting up and leading the other women away.

Jet stared at the floor in front of him where she'd been. 

Blinking slowly, he tried to put things together. He didn't know where he was. Who was the prince, and why was the prince giving him things? He must have gotten here somehow, but he couldn't remember. There had been a lot of people. There had been a lot of red. Lee had been there. No details, nothing important awoke out of his memory to greet him. 

His wrists felt raw, and he rubbed them. 

Things seemed quiet. He was alone, he thought, but looking around the room there were two men by door in front of him. Their heads were bare, and their shoulders seemed uncharacteristically lean, but he couldn't tell how he'd gotten that impression.

Time got confusing, and he lost track of it staring at the silent men. They both had swords on their belts, and Jet had the feeling he should be antsy about that. For some unknown reason he wasn't though. He just leaned back against the pillows he was on and waited for something.

At some point he must have dosed off again, because when he opened his eyes Lee was standing over him, face some mix between impressed and surprised.

"They did well," he said. "You actually cleaned up. I thought the dirt had become part of your skin."

Jet had the thought to be insulted, but it didn't work out for him. He huffed some air between his lips, all the indignation he could manage as Lee sat down beside him.

"My father's going to have some questions about you. I'd like to request you don't try to kill him, as it would make what I'm trying to do very difficult," Lee told him. Jet blinked, and wondered what on earth Lee was trying to do. "You'll start classes tomorrow when I return to my tutelage. I've asked permission, and you'll be able to attend my lessons with me." 

Talking trailed off, and Jet looked over to see Lee looking at him. "Lessons?" he asked and he was sort of proud of himself because it was the first thing he could remember saying in spirits knew how long. Things were fuzzy. 

"Yeah. History, reading, writing, sword play. Those sorts of things."

Jet blinked at him. "Why?" he asked.

"Because I want you to learn about our country. I understand what you've been through, but I think it's important," Lee explained. Jet had no idea what he was talking about.

He opened his mouth to say something about the Fire Nation being the reason he didn't know anything about their country because he'd never had a chance at school being who he was and not many people taught history in forests, when a door opened behind them.

"We've finished preparations," a woman's voice declared to the room. Jet watched Li turn to look at her before following the example. "The room is ready."

"Come on," Lee said, pulling him to his feet by his hand, and leading him around the couch. "Let's see what they've done."

Lee lead them through the door into a small hallway, and through another door. "I requested that they find green fabrics, and draperies for you. I thought it would make you feel more comfortable," he explained. "That's an old Earth Kingdom tapestry that's been hanging in the trophy room for ages. It tells the history of Omashu."

"Oh," Jet said. 

"This used to be my room when I was growing up," Lee told him. "I've moved into my mother's old one."

A tense and awkward silence took up between them then. They looked at each other, and then at anything but each other. 

"Nice fabric," Jet said after a while.

"How are you feeling?" Lee asked.

Jet shrugged. "Fuzzy," he said, getting an intense feeling of deja vu.

"You should sleep," Lee told him.

"Probably."

Lee took his hair down for him, and pulled the covers back. "You can take your clothes off if you want," he said then. "I'll leave you alone so it won't be a problem."

Jet shook his head, and laid down, pulling the covers up over his shoulders. He watched Lee close the door behind himself, and swore he heard the lock turn. The last thing he was aware of before he drifeted back off was that there weren’t any windows in this room.


	2. Chapter 2

Consciousness rushed back to him like he'd been doused in ice water, and he bolted awake, screaming, trying to pry the earth around his wrists off, to get away from that damn light. He needed to get out. He needed to get out. He needed to find the sun. He floundered, and hit the floor with a wooden thunk. 

He was lying on a plush carpet. There were no windows in this room. The dark hung heavy around him, air suffocatingly still. Just like under the lake. Again, he scrambled, finding his feet just barely as the world seemed to pitch around him. He needed to find Lee. Lee had been here when he fell asleep.

There was a single door which he tripped toward, catching the latch, and trying with all his might to open the damn thing. It rattled in its frame locked solidly in place. He tried again. Nothing. His fists ached when they slammed into the solid wood, but it didn't stop him. Someone would hear him, or he'd break the damn door down.

The only thing he could think to do really was call for Lee. Yeah he hadn't known much about the guy, but he'd known the guy, and for the time they'd known one another they'd gotten close. As close as people can get within a few days of interaction, a single intense night on a ferry.

The door burst open suddenly, and Lee was standing there, wild eyed in a red robe, holding a flame in suspension over his palm.

Lee was a firebender. Lee was a firebender. Of course Lee was a firebender. Jet already knew that. Lee being a firebender is what got him brainwashed in the first place.

"Scum!" he snarled as Lee was opening his mouth to ask what was wrong. He fisted his hand in the other boy's hair and dragged him into the room. "Firebending scum!"

"Jet, please!"

"I trusted you!" The world felt hot, and his face was burning, but it wasn't Lee's fire that lit the room anymore. Lee's fire had gone out. Lee's palms were on Jet's wrist now, trying to pull Jet's hand from his hair.

"Jet, stop it," he demanded, but he wasn't in the place to be making demands. Jet pulled his other hand back, ready to smash Lee's damn face in when there were shouts. Two men in Fire Nation uniform came barreling through the door, grabbing him by his shoulders, and pulling him off the other boy.

"Don't hurt him," Lee instructed forcefully. "He's confused."

"What's wrong with him?" one of the soldiers asked.

Lee was holding a hand to his head delicately, wincing. "Combat shock," he explained. Jet wanted to rip his mouth off.

"Looks young for a veteran," Jet heard one of the men say.

"We recruit firebenders into the army at sixteen. Thirteen if they're particularly skilled," Lee said. Jet felt the guards' grips become sheepish.

He thrashed hard, opened his mouth to shout at Lee again, and fire came out, warping the sound, bubbling up too hot and angry. It felt like he was choking on it. Why was there fire in his mouth? He was gonna burn from the inside. He tried to scream but it only got worse until Lee's hand was clamped firmly over his mouth. 

It felt strange, like the other boy had reached down his throat and taken control of him from the inside. He gagged, but the flames stopped.

"Let him go," Lee ordered. Jet's arms felt cold and bare without warm hands on them. He struggled to get away from the firebender. Lee's grip was too stubborn though. "Breathe," he instructed, and Jet did despite not ever wanting to listen to a thing the other boy said again. 

He was kneeling on the floor, and Lee was kneeling in front of him, holding his head in place between the hand over his mouth and a hand cradling the back of his head. "Leave us," Lee said, and the two men who had restrained Jet walked reluctantly back through the door.

"You're fine," Lee said then. "Just try not to get too worked up."

Jet tried to bite his hand, but it warmed unexpectedly between his teeth, making him afraid his lips would scald. 

"Are you calm?" Lee asked when they'd sat like that for a long time. Reluctantly, Jet nodded.

The night felt cool on his face when Lee's hand pulled away from his mouth. 

"What are you doing?" Jet asked when they'd sat in silence too long. 

"I'm teaching you about our country," Lee explained. "We'll start lessons in the morning. Do you want me to stay with you while you sleep?"

Jet shook his head, and Lee left him, closing and locking the door as he went. It was cold without a firebender sharing his space. After a long time of sitting on the floor in the dark, he crawled his way back to the bed, and burrowed into it. It was the most comfortable thing he could ever remember lying on. It almost made him forget the feeling of flame in his throat.

The next thing he knew, a strange man was standing over him. "The prince has gone to breakfast. He wishes you to eat here," he explained. 

"Oh," Jet said, sitting up. The man frowned at him slightly, and it made nervousness bloom in his stomach with the feeling he had done something wrong but didn't know it.

They had pulled a small wheeled table into the sitting room, and he was sat in front of it to eat a number of dishes he didn't recognize. The man explained to him what each thing was, going on at length about ingredients Jet had never heard of until his head was filled with questions and he wasn't sure he'd want to eat ever again. 

The man pointed something out as pig-chicken, and Jet had eaten that before so he decided to start there.

The man frowned at how he ate, and that feeling of being wrong but not knowing how came back. The food was spicy enough that it burned his tongue. His tongue had burned last night hadn't it? He was more than thankful for the glass of milk sat beside his plate. 

Humbled by the pain, he picked through each dish until he found one that didn't set him on fire, and ate his fill. When he looked up, he realized he'd been left alone as he ate which he found himself comfortable with until the man came back and had the table wheeled away before bustling Jet off toward the bath.

He was stripped of his clothes and pushed into the water rather quickly. People pushed him and pulled him in too many directions for him to be anywhere near comfortable about how little he was wearing. 

Taking a bath had never been so much like fighting before. He kicked one poor boy in the knuckles and watched him nurse his slowly swelling hand as someone scrubbed at one of his armpits. It felt oddly familiar but not at all in a comforting way. Like this was a torture he'd been exposed to before.

The Dai Li were waiting somewhere around here, he knew it. They were the reason he was in this bath with all these people. Joo-Dees probably only they didn't smile like that. 

He was pulled out of the water before panic really set in, and they buffed him dry with fluffy blankets before bringing out clothing for him to pick. It was bizarre. He didn't understand. He picked the least red thing they had, a sort of rusty blood and earth color. It matched the shirt he usually wore. 

Where was that shirt? Where was his armor? Most importantly: where were his swords? 

They dressed him, and paid no attention to how nervous he was. Then, when he was dressed, they pulled his hair back into a tail, tied it with a ribbon, and slid a pin in it. He looked almost Fire Nation himself now, and he glared hard at his reflection in the mirror. The mimicry of a topknot he wore matched the real topknots the men around him wore.

He frowned at them, and they frowned back at him. 

"The prince will be back shortly," the man who had woken and fed him said as he walked him back into the sitting room. 

Jet sat down on the couch and crossed his arms.

He vaguely remembered Lee being here. Lee firebending at night in the dark. Last night, Lee had come through those doors and they'd spoken about something. Jet couldn't put his finger on what. Everything seemed so out of place and odd. It felt like continuity kept ducking out on him. 

He missed the forest. He almost missed Ba Sing fucking Se.

As his brain told him would happen, Lee did come through those doors. He looked regal, the pin in his topknot looked like fine hammered metal, curling in the shape of a fire, two sharp points reaching toward the ceiling. Fire Nation through and through. Jet had known but he should have been more on guard. 

"If you attack me it'll only end up the same as it did last night," Lee warned, fussing with the cuff of his sleeve. It lay tight against his skin contrary to popular styles in Ba Sing Se. It was a far cry from what Jet remembered him wearing last.

"Where are we?" Jet asked, regarding the other boy suspiciously.

"In the Fire Nation," Lee told him. "I had the chance to return home. I brought you with me," he added like that explained everything.

Jet glared at him. What was his game? What was he doing? Why?

"My lessons begin in fifteen minutes," Lee said. "You'll be accompanying me."

"Why?" Jet asked.

"To learn about your history," Lee declared. Jet felt cold and homesick, When Lee reached out to take his wrist he twisted out of the grip.

"I'm gonna kill everyone here, you know?" he spat, lurching off the couch and into Lee's face, knocking the other boy slightly off balance with his proximity.

"Don't let the guards hear you say that," the firebender advised and Jet wanted to kill him. Something in his head told him that there was someone called Zuko near by, and they were a threat. Someone to be taken out as quickly as possible. "You're still a little head dizzy from whatever those Dai Li agents did to you."

"You think so?" Jet asked. "You think you can take me?"

Lee didn't give him a verbal response. He just swept Jet's legs, sending him sprawling back onto the couch and grabbed his wrist up in a bruising, twisting grip with his thumb pressed squarely against an aching pressure point. Jet hissed, and kicked at the other boy's shins, but Lee avoided him and backhanded him in the face like an insolent child with his free hand all at once.

Jet stopped, stunned. He hadn't been backhanded since he'd been a begging child. The sting of humiliation bloomed in his face. He gasped, staring up at Lee in shocked silence. Lee just looked back down at him impassively as if the slap had been an inevitable thing considering his behavior.

Jet couldn't help gawking. Just gawking plain and simple. He couldn't understand. There was so much going on all at once clashing around like a cacophony in his head.

"Get up," Lee told him, voice harsh, and uncompromising. An order. Jet was the one who gave orders. No this was wrong. He'd felt right at some point yesterday but now it was wrong. 

"I said. Get. Up," Lee demanded again. He yanked Jet's wrist, forcing him back onto his feet, unsteady in the small space between the couch and Lee's knees. "We have a lesson to attend."

Jet glared at him, but Lee had stepped back, and jerked him forward before he could protest further. He stumbled, fumbling and awkward behind the other boy, sprawling as much as walking.

When they came to the doors he expected them to lead outside, but instead they lead to a large, ornate hallway with pillars, and draperies, and useless tables covered in ornamental displays of vases. Zuko pulled him along polished black marble floors, keeping him off balance by the grip on his wrist and the sure speed of his gait.

If Jet had wanted to protest further he hadn't gotten much time. Lee pulled them into a garden, and sent him skidding to his knees in the grass before a man dressed in nice robes.

"We have come for our lesson," Lee said gruffly before dipping into a formal little bow. 

The man bowed back. "A bit late," he said upon straightening. "Who is this?"

"This is Jet," Lee explained. "He's my charge and he'll be joining us for study."

"Jet?" the man asked. He turned calculating eyes on Jet, seeming to size him up. Jet snarled back. "That's not a proper name."

"What do you know?" Jet spat, staggering back onto his feet. 

"A lot more than you obviously," the man said. Jet went to lunge for him, and Lee's hand was on the back of his neck in a second, that same odd feeling of almost being puppeted spread out through his limbs, locking him up.

He snarled, angrily, stretching against the hold like a rabid dog on a leash. The man looked between the two of them before meeting Jet's eyes again. "He's impressive," he said, as if Jet was some sort of animal Lee kept for a pet.

He strained to continue, but Lee's hand pulled him back in line, never leaving the skin of his neck. Snarling again, he thrashed in an attempt to break free but the hold kept firm.

"Where did you find someone like this?" the man asked.

"The colonies," Lee explained.

"They don't train firebenders in the colonies?" the man asked.

"Of course they do - " Jet started, about to admonish the practice because it was honestly disgusting that their land yielded such poisonous crops.

"He's an orphan," Lee said.

The kind of removed pity the man turned on Jet then was nothing short of infuriating. "I don't need Fire Nation sympathy!" Jet shouted in both their faces. "I'd have parents if it wasn't for you!"

The man looked shocked quiet, Lee's hand just tightened on the back of his neck. 

"Begin the lesson, master," Lee instructed, that same ordering tone back in his voice. 

"Of course, your highness," the man agreed. "Sit," he instructed.

Lee sat then, and Jet was entirely dismayed to find himself dragged along for the ride. 

"I am Master Buwei. I will be taking over your education from Master Faolan." the man said by way of introduction. "We will begin with meditation, and then we will move on to stoking our fires with breath," the man explained. "After that I will assess your current level of skill."

"I ain't doing that shit," Jet said heatedly, but Lee's hand tightened again, almost painfully this time. 

"You'll do as you're told, or you'll be made to," he said harshly. Jet glared at him.

They sat there, and he was expected to keep his eyes closed. To breathe deeply. To be completely still. It felt like ages of torture with the sun beating down on him, making him restless. The sun had always made him feel so alive, set his blood to running in his veins at a gallop. Usually he found that helpful. He never tired during the day and could outrun anyone it felt like. Now it made his inability to move seem like as much of a prison as the one he was currently being kept in.

Finally, Lee moved his hand from the back of Jet's neck, and it felt almost as if he'd been set free. Like some invisible cage was lifting from around his body. He opened his eyes to find sparks glittering along the moist grass he sat on, extinguishing themselves on morning dew drops just shy of catching the whole lawn in a blaze.

He shouted, alarmed, somersaulting over backwards, to get out of the way. The grass where he'd just been went up in a small lick of flame. Casually, Lee reached out, and extinguished it.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Jet demanded, sitting up on his knees.

Lee fixed him with a particularly confused look, and Jet wheeled on the man who was instructing them for spirits knew what reason. What kind of class was this anyway? 

"It was you then!" he accused. Instantly, he reached for his hip, looking for his swords but they weren't there. He groped empty air, confused momentarily by their absence. This wasn't good. Here he was unarmed against two firebenders.

Panic swelled up hot and buoyant in his chest, expanding like a sail caught by wind. Lee found his feet, staying crouched low to the ground as he reached out to where Jet had stopped in his scramble.

Jet flinched, opening his mouth to shout, and there was fire. It felt like vomit. Hot acidic, burning vomit high in his throat. He couldn't stop it. It sputtered sporadically, guttering over Lee's hand harmlessly, parting before it ever touched his skin.

How was Lee doing this? He'd seen some insane firebending tricks fighting the invasion, but never anything like this. He'd never seen a bender make someone else produce fire. How was this even possible?

Lee shifted, lunging out. The hand he wasn't using to disperse the flames came around, and caught the back of Jet's head. He carried through until his palms were sealed, one to the nape of Jet's neck and the other to his mouth, stopping the eddying torrent of flame. 

Lee had been there last night, and he'd done the same then, Jet remembered. Why was he doing this? What had Jet done wrong enough to deserve this sort of insane punishment?

"Jet you need to breathe," Lee insisted softly.

Jet shook his head, trying to break away. If he could get away from Lee -- who wasn't just a firebender but some unparalleled master most likely -- he couldn't believe they sent someone like this after him -- it would stop. He knew that intrinsically.

But Lee didn't let go. Again, his hold seemed to be unshakable, like it was rooted to the very substance of his skin. 

"Breathe Jet!" Lee demanded, arms tensing with the force of his will so that Jet's head was jostled slightly between his hands.

The air rattled in through his nose, scaldingly cold against the flesh of his sinuses. Lee breathed with him, pursing his lips to show as he breathed back out. Reluctantly, Jet allowed the coaching until the burn started to ease.

"Good," Lee told him after they'd sat like that a while. "You need to keep control of your breath if you don't want to loose control of your fire," he added, gently pulling his hold away. 

Jet offered him a quizzical look, clutching his throat. 

"So he's not a push over," the master said. "That could have been real talent if you'd been properly trained."

Jet glared at him harshly. "What's he talking about?" he asked no one in particular because he couldn't talk to Lee really.

"Your bending," Lee answered anyway. "You're a pretty strong bender," he elaborated as Jet began to flounder.

No. No this wasn't- "I'm not a bender. Neither of my parents were-" he coudln't say that for certain. His mother had been married but everyone had always known her husband wasn't his father. There had been the long standing suspicion that he was himself a remnant of the brutality when their town had been captured. It had been what ran him out of what little was left of town after the rebellion failed. "What would I even bend?" he decided to say instead.

"You just did though," Lee said, pointing at the singed grass.

"No that was you," Jet insisted.

There was a silence that fell on them then. Buwei looked to Lee and Lee looked to Buwei.

"Does he not know?" the master asked curiously.

Lee frowned, turning his attention back to Jet. "When we fought under Ba Sing Se you were firebending," he explained. "I took you prisoner because if you aren't given proper instruction on how to control yourself you will burn yourself and everything around you."

Jet could feel himself starting to panic again, but Lee reached out, sliding his hand back around the bare skin on his neck. For some reason, his touch seemed to quell the heat under Jet's skin. It was that odd puppet feeling, but maybe it wasn't all bad if it could stop the burn.

"Master, we may need to take five," Lee said to the man hovering nosily behind him. 

Buwei nodded, and retreated a ways off, leaving them crouched in the grass alone.

"Jet, you're a firebender," Lee said softly. 

Jet punched him in the face.

There was a loud crack, and a shout as Buwei was rushing back over to them. Lee groaned, holding his free hand to his cheek gingerly. "Don't you try to paint me with the same brush as you you fucking scum!" he shouted, trying to shake Lee's hand off again. 

Lee slammed him face first into the grass, placing a knee on the apex where his neck met his shoulders and holding him there.

"I have it under control," he said as Jet heard the master's footsteps encroach on them once more. "I may need to postpone today's lesson," was tacked on after. 

Jet snarled as he felt his hands twisted up behind his back. 

"All as well," Buwei answered. "Better to have your pet properly trained before you begin expecting him to preform."

Jet tried to thrash as Lee lifted him up onto his feet, but it was useless. The other boy was incredibly strong in an unexpected way. This force had been nowhere on the ferry when Jet had pushed him up into a wall. That had been Lee as a show of weak fumbling hands and unsure protests. Such a lie.

Jet tipped himself forward too far, falling quickly enough back to the ground that Lee lost his grip. Then he jackknifed, throwing himself sideways and rolling.

Lee swore, and there was a burning crackling heat which he knew as fire before it was fire. He spun and caught it on his hand watching as it divided up his arm, the right one that had got caught under a burning tree in an early raid before they'd even been called Freedom Fighters.

His skin stayed in tact, but the grass around him charred first black and then white.

"What are you doing?" Lee bellowed. Jet looked up to see the other boy rounded on his master, shouting. "You could have hurt him!"

"He was attack-" Buwei started in attempt to defend himself.

"He's confused!" Lee roared. "Get out before I have you fired! Get!"

Jet watched the man scurry, as if in a terror, out of the garden. He lay stunned on the lawn for a moment, not knowing what to do or say. It was odd being defended by a known bender after clearly having bent himself.

"Are you alright?" Lee asked.

Jet grunted at him, accepting the offered help up.

"Let's get you back to my rooms."


	3. Chapter 3

Lee left him alone in the rooms for the rest of the day with instructions not to do anything stupid. It was quiet when he remembered. He was lying in bed, wrapped up in blankets.

Katara had flipped the switch, He remembered her hands all foggy through the panic, and the sleep deprivation, and the brain washing. He remembered under Lake Laogai when Long Feng had almost killed him. It had been fire that saved his life. His fire.

Distorted and far away were the memories of what came next, trying to grapple with it, leaving Smellerbee and Longshot behind down there. Panic, and sick. They'd found Lee in the tea shop, and Katara had called him Zuko. 

Prince Zuko. Prince of the Fire Nation.

Lee was the prince. Lee was Zuko. He'd known that. He'd made these connections before. His head felt tumultuous and delicate on the inside. Thoughts all whisked like eggs.

He needed a plan. He needed to get home. He needed to destroy the fire nation. He needed to kill the Fire Lord- the whole royal family.

He could do it too. With Lee- with Zuko championing him he was safe. He could gather information. He could become the knife in the dark that ended the war. He was right in the belly of the beast. He had the power to cut his way out and see it dead. 

Zuko didn't trust him. Not yet. But Jet had never been anything if he wasn't charming. A fast enough talker to get behind an awkward, sheltered thing like Zuko anyway. And there had been the ferry. Lee had been more than eager to make a connection. He'd been ready and willing. Jet didn't doubt he would be now.

There were, after all, all those rumors about the appetites of firebenders. About how fire would eat as long as there was food.

Zuko was there when he was called to breakfast in the morning. He was eating some sort of meat that was red with spice. Jet sat down opposite him.

"They made me sleep in a different set of clothes last night," he said conspiratorially over their food, trying to seem normal, and put the burning urge to hurt away. He would hurt. It would just take time. He would get his revenge he just needed to wait.

The right half of Zuko's face frowned at him. "Pajamas," he said.

"Excuse me?" 

"Most people have sleep clothes. They call them pajamas. Don't assume we're weird just because you were raised by wolf-bats," Zuko said. He sounded just like Lee. Jet wanted to smash the pretty that was left in his face. Where would he be without that? Just a thief with a broken mug. Just like all the other trash. Just like Jet.

Fuck Lee. Fuck Zuko too. Jet found himself a plate of something that didn't look too spicy and bit into it spitefully. It didn't really taste like anything. He needed to be patient and friendly. Zuko was sitting across the table eating daintily, face turned so that Jet's vision mostly caught his good side. 

Back on that ferry, the scar had been what made Jet want Lee. That kid had worn it with spiteful pride, like he would never suffer to hide his face no matter what anyone did to him. By contrast, Zuko sat behind his breakfast and hung his head over his food.

"Self conscious?" Jet asked, and he was well aware it was a little mean even as he said it, but Zuko recoiled, turning his head to a sharp parallel. He was pretty when his face looked whole like that. Too pretty. It was a good thing whoever had burned him burned him. Maybe Zuko didn't realize it, but he should be grateful. 

"No," the prince said after a beat. Jet watched him straighten his back, and it was almost mechanical like those tanks the Fire Army used, then the other boy turned his face so that he could see it dead on. 

It was worse this way. Why had he ever poked at this wound? The scar had been the thing. The scar had been the reason he learned Lee's name. The scar had been why they connected. The scar had been the basis for that whole night. How had he forgotten it was his favorite fucking part?

How had he forgotten he was fucked up?

He swallowed a bit harder than he needed to, and took a second bite that was far too large.

"You'll choke," Zuko chastised, words lacking force.

"I've swallowed bigger," Jet boasted around his mouthful.

Zuko blushed, and it was just as easy as making Lee blush, but it was still a fucking lie. It had to be a lie. He knew it. Like he knew there was fire in his own veins and something would need to be done about that once he'd sacked the war.

Couldn't think about that now. Couldn't. Couldn't. So much more to do than that.

"Hey," the prince said then, and he sounded weak, a bit fragile. It had Jet's attention in a second. "We need to talk."

"What about?" Jet asked, and Zuko looked a little embarrassed before waving the guards, and attending servant out of the room.

"You remember what happened on the ferry?" he paused before adding "Between us?" to drive home the point.

Jet remembered, and Zuko obviously saw it in his face from the way he barreled ahead.

"Well it didn't happen," he said in direct contradiction to what he had just implied.

"Is it bad that it happened?" Jet asked, thinking about Lee's face turned up at him, mouth open.

"Yes," Zuko said, and it sounded almost like it had sounded then. Almost as tight and desperate.

"That's not what you were saying when you were choking on my dick," Jet told him.

Zuko went as red at the shirt he was wearing, tone evening out to match his scar, and for a moment, Jet was worried his face would disappear into the sea of Fire Nation upholstery around him. "It's not the same here as it was back in the Earth Kingdom. This isn't your cushy little forest! Here we have morality laws!" he snapped.

"Morality what?" Jet asked.

"What we did," Zuko started. He chewed silently on his words for a moment "It's illegal here."

"There's illegal sex?" Jet asked incredulously. 

"Well you can't fuck a baby." Zuko defended.

"You're not a fucking baby!"

"It doesn't matter! It didn't happen! It won't happen! Don't say anything about it or you're risking both our lives!"

Jet wanted to laugh at him, but there was real fear in the prince's face. "My sister's already making accusations. If she takes them to my father, I could be banished again, or maybe killed on charges of treason. Shirking my responsibility to the crown by castrating myself on some peasant’s cock-" Zuko hid the good side of his face behind his hand, holding his head as it hung heavy on his neck.

"When it happened none of this mattered. It wasn't important. This whole life was as far behind me as it could have ever gotten. I was trying to start over so I just went with it. Spirits I was stupid," he concluded to his plate.

Jet blinked at him blankly. "This life was behind you?" he asked, trying to wrap his head around what Zuko was saying. It didn't make sense for him to tell tales now, but he was a fucking ashmaker. They couldn't help but lie. It was compulsive.

Zuko cowed even further at that. "I was banished. Why else would I have been on a ferry to Ba Sing Se with about a hundred refugees?" he asked. It was a good story, but he was a liar. Liar liar. Pants on fire.

Lee was a terrible liar, something dumb and vicious reminded him.

"Oh I gotta hear this one," Jet said, taking another bite of food, and chewing expectantly.

Zuko gave him a look, and pushed his own plate away from himself. "Go fuck yourself, Jet," he muttered. Getting up to walk away, he added a quick comment about lessons being scheduled in an hour. The doors to the room he stayed in slammed behind him, rattling against one another. 

Jet didn't finish his breakfast either.

He spent the hour of time between then and lessons exploring his bedroom. The man who occupied the room beside his, a servant who's name Jet had yet to catch at all, refused to let him into the room opposite his, saying that it belonged to the princess despite the fact that the princess had never even seemed to think about coming near it.

In fact, Jet hadn't seen a lick of blue fire since he'd been thrown into these rooms the day of his arrival. Perhaps the palace was just big, or more likely she had no interest in what her brother was doing with an Earth Kingdom peasant. 

Jet really had no problem acknowledging how insignificant he was in the eyes of royalty. If he were quite honest, royalty was just as insignificant to him. 

Except, it seemed, maybe Zuko had ruined that. Jet felt heat crackle along the backs of his knuckles in annoyance. Lee had been so fucking perfect. He'd been perfect and damaged and broken. He'd needed all the healing that Jet was able to give a person. 

He would have been a great freedom fighter. He would have been perfect. 

Jet growled lamely at a large armoire that had been shoved up against the wall he shared with the snooty servant. It was a dumb piece of furniture. Despite them being in the literal heart of the Fire Nation it was undeniably Earth Kingdom. Just like him. 

His hands were hot with anger, and it was a feeling he remembered well, one he was fully used to. His body grew hot with rage it always had. Back in the forest, he'd used anger to keep himself warm on cold nights, and he remembered Smellerbee's hands on his own, cold fingers begging for the heat he naturally provided.

That had been fire under his skin. He looked at the backs of his fisted fingers, and he saw little sparks leap up off of him. Part of him wondered how long he'd been on fire, but he knew the honest truth was he'd been burning his whole life. 

He turned to the mirror on the wall, and looked frantically into it at his own eyes, pulling the lids away from the whites of them to better see the color of his irises, terrified for a moment they may have changed to the hideous Fire Nation gold that Zuko's were.

They stared back just as dark and brown as ever, and he sighed heavily, relieved despite the fact that he'd known in simple form of knowing that a person's eye color did not change that way.

He turned and sat down on the bed with an exaggerated flop, hiding his face in his hands. Even in Ba Sing Se he hadn't missed the forest this desperately. He missed his Freedom Fighters and the sounds of home all around him. It was so quiet here.

It was so quiet.

Something made a sound on the other side of the wall. Not the one he shared with the servant. The one opposite. The one that for all he knew shouldn't have had anyone on the other side of it. He waited, listening. A moment of two of silence passed and the sound came again.

It was an undeniably human sound, the kind made by a girl sharing her bed. Jet straightened, and stared at the Omashu tapestry on the wall. Oma's face stared back at him, woven and impassive beside her husband's.

The girl on the other side of the wall just got louder. It sounded almost more like a show than an actual response to pleasure, but that made sense to him for some reason. It was unbelievably easy to imagine no one in the Fire Nation having good sex ever. 

He felt awkward though. Unlike back in the Earth Kingdom, he wasn't friends with whoever was over there. He didn't know them at all. He felt intrusive and strange sitting on his bed, staring Oma in the face while two complete strangers fucked like wild beastalopes within ear shot.

From the sound of her she was probably a prostitute. As someone who'd sold his own time, he knew performance well, and he'd heard many like this one through inn walls while he was on his hands and knees.

Zuko would come get him soon and demand that he show at practice. It would all be over. He just had to wait this awkwardness out. He wondered what Zuko was doing alone in his own room. Maybe the prince could hear these people fucking as well.

Only one voice was prominent but it was clear someone else was engaged. Maybe Zuko knew who it was. Maybe Zuko was completely at home with the sounds of palace sex in the morning.

The door to Jet's room flew open, and Jet spun around, spitting bits of fire through his teeth at the intruder. 

"We'll go to lessons early," Zuko announced. "Come on," and then he turned on his heal, clearly eager to be moving as soon as possible. So it was just as awkward for him to listen in as it was for Jet. Jet found that kind of a surprise because the prince was supposed to be familiar with the palace, but it was clear to see by the back of his neck and healthy ear that he was blushing. 

"Who is that?" Jet asked as Zuko lead them back into the sitting room and through the doors into the grand hallway again.

"My sister," the prince spat angrily. 

"I thought her room was the room across from mine" Jet said.

"Used to be," Zuko told him without slowing his gate. They almost galloped past intricately carved pillars and ornate vases. "She moved into my father's sweet after my mother went missing. She hasn't used that room since she was nine."

That seemed like an awful long time for something like an old bedroom to be kept pristine and untampered with. Jet didn't understand, but there was much Jet didn't understand about the ruling classes so he let it go without further poking.

"Who's she with?" he asked conversationally. Zuko stopped, turning on him like a rat-viper so fast his scar was nothing but a red blur on his face.

"That is none of your fucking business," he hissed venomously. Half of Jet's stomach flipped nervously, but the other half spoke about horrible things he could do to that face. He'd licked that scar once, maybe he could get away with it again. Maybe he could give Zuko's sister a taste of her own medicine by making her brother moan that loud right where she could hear him.

Jet licked his lips, eyes on Zuko's and tried to remind himself that Zuko was not Lee but it didn't really work so much as make him more interested. Maybe Lee had been some perfect little refugee on a ferry, but Zuko was the crowned prince and it suddenly occurred to Jet that fucking the crowned prince was almost exactly like fucking the whole of the Fire Nation.

Jet had shoved his dick down the Fire Nation's throat and suddenly that was the hottest thought. It had been hot too. Literally. Lee's mouth had been like a gentle fire burning in a hearth, wrapped in all the right ways around him. 

Zuko had said it was illegal, but who cared? Who cared? Really who took the time of fucking day?

"My sister lives her own life, she makes her own choices, whoever is in her bed is none of your concern," the prince hissed at him. There was fire on his tongue and he was in Jet's face, and Jet could just tilt his head and swallow those flames. They wouldn't hurt him. Fire hardly ever hurt him. It had always been a bit more friendly to his skin than others. Damn Zuko was pretty when he was angry.

Jet decked him in the face. 

He stared at his own hand in confusion as Zuko roared angrily, holding his mouth and spinning away. He couldn't really fathom the process that had lead from thinking about kissing Zuko to punching him. Maybe it had been similar to the process that had lead to him punching Lee yesterday.

Zuko took advantage of his distraction to deck him back, and before Jet knew it they were rolling around on the floor outright brawling, fists flying at each other like they'd been made for nothing else. Zuko's weight bore into Jet harshly, straddling his groin heavy and too warm, but Jet was focusing on dodging the fists still coming at his face. 

Zuko's right hand hit the floor with a crunch, fingers impacting with hard wood, and he recoiled in pain just far enough that he brought the cleft of his ass flush with Jet, freezing in place, eyes wide, even the damaged one. 

The prince looked at Jet and it was clear he had no idea what course of action one should take in this situation. Sitting illegally on an illegal boner in the hallway of the palace while servants and guards bustled around doing their thing.

He opened his mouth to say something, closed it, opened it again. Jet decided this was the only opening he was going to get, and shoved the prince off him probably a bit harder than he meant to as the other boy hit the ground shoulder blades first with an "oomph" that sounded like the air had left him.

Quickly, Jet scrambled to his feet, checking the hallway for witnesses as he adjusted his clothes to hopefully better hide the erection he was currently sporting. He didn't want to be seen hard over an ashmaker. Zuko lay on the floor, slightly sprawled, legs spread, helping nothing, staring at Jet like he had just metamorphosed into the actual fucking Avatar.

Slowly, the look of astonishment on the prince's face wilted into a glare and he rolled to rights, finding his feet. "We need to get to class," he said somewhat hurriedly. 

Jet allowed the change of subject. Zuko would have a bruise at the corner of his mouth tomorrow to match the one already on his cheek and it would be almost as ugly as the scar on his face. 

Master Buwei frowned at them when they made it into the garden they had trained in the day before. He looked from Jet's face to Zuko's and back again, the corners of his mouth turning further downward. 

"Still walking a pet that doesn't know how to obey," he observed. Jet sneered at him. He had vague memories of his father talking to him like that, like he was an idiot, before everything had burned, and in that moment he tried desperately to remember what the man had looked like.

A little like Lee. A little like Zuko. His arms burned like an inferno. No his father hadn't been Fire Nation. His father had had dark eyes along with his dark hair and his skin had been pale by coincidence.

His father had been far from the only person to speak to him like that though, and the slow sounds also brought back memory of soldiers Earth and Fire a-like, of adults he didn't know, shopkeepers, and school teachers, and old ladies on the street.

He didn't really like Buwei much. 

Zuko looked a bit abashed however. He offered the teacher a low bow in greeting. "My friend simply got excited on the way to class," he lied, and it was such an obvious lie. Buwei continued frowning at them.

"I am aware, Prince Zuko, that your previous teacher encouraged fist fights between you and the princess but I do not tolerate such behavior between my pupils during my class. If the two of you have some sort of dispute to work out, do it in an Agni Kai," he said sternly. "You are here to learn firebending not fisticuffs."

Zuko shot Jet a heated glare, but Jet ignored it. 

"Bow, Jet," Buwei instructed him, and Jet snarled at the man.

"Make me," he hissed between his teeth. 

Zuko's hand was on the back of his neck in an instant, grip crushing as he did exactly that and forced Jet into a low bow. "Do not test my patience with insolence. You are here because I am merciful and I believe that you can have something made of you. Throw that in my face and find yourself in prison for the rest of your life," he growled

"We may begin our lesson," Buwei announced then, cutting Jet off before he could retort. "Sit."

Zuko dragged Jet down with him as he sat. Jet tried to continue ignoring him, but it was hard when he could feel how warm Zuko was. Had he been able to feel that when Zuko was just Lee, he wondered. Had some distant part of the fire inside him known all along that Lee was Zuko and that Zuko burned inside? Had that been what called him into the other boy's pants in the first place?

Zuko let go and cold rushed up to replace the feeling of him on Jet's skin.

"We will begin today's lesson with history," Buwei announced. He looked quite happy with himself, and Jet wanted to torch him- got frustrated at the impulse. He wasn't the type to fight with fire. He should want his swords. He did. He craved his swords like he craved Fire Nation blood.

"In the ancient past, people of the Fire Nation turned to the dragons, the first fire benders, and they learned from them," Buwei announced.

Jet looked at Zuko to see how ridiculous he thought learning from dragons sounded, but, honestly, he seemed to be taking it as fact. Jet was a bit disappointed with him. The legends that surrounded the origins of bending always seemed like fairy tales to him.

"Dragons knew fire in a way no human could ever hope to. For them fire is an extension of being. They are anger. They are rage. They personify the power that is flame" Buwei said.

"I see, young prince, that your friend is filled with turmoil. He has no idea who he is, or where he stands. His anger is too wide and too dispersed. He needs to learn to channel it" 

Jet sneered at the man. Of course he knew who he was. Who was this wispy ashmaker to stand there and read him out like a book as if he even understood the language that Jet's pages would be written in. 

“He's even forsaken his own people."

Zuko gave Jet a calculating look, and Jet flashed teeth at him. He felt like an animal in a cage, children poking their fingers through the bars at him. He'd bite those fingers off. 

"We will begin by meditating as we did yesterday. Close your eyes, and focus on the light of the sun. Feel it's warmth." 

Jet wanted to roll his eyes more than close them, but Zuko's elbow caught him in the ribs again, bidding he listen. 

"The sun is made of nothing but fire," Buwei said. "It rules the sky with an iron fist as you must rule your own life."

Buwei shifted and Jet felt fire leap to life in the man’s hands even despite his eyes still being closed, face still turned to the warm, comforting light of the sun. He knew there was fire the way he always knew there was fire, and it sang to him. 

"Water benders, earth benders- they can be separated from their elements. A fire bender cannot be. Your fire comes from within. It is created by your chi. It is an extension of yourself in a literal sense the way a sword is an extension of yourself in a metaphorical sense."

Jet opened his eye, and looked at the fire in Buwei's outstretched hand. He wanted to recoil from it, to be disgusted, but there was no threat. It sat there, and it simmered calmly above the master's hand.

"Hold out your hand," Buwei instructed. Jet kept his eyes on the man's flame as he did so. "Fire comes from your breath. Breathe deeply, and feel how the sun gives you strength." Jet heard Zuko inhale through his nose, turned his head just in time to see bits of flames escape the prince's lips as he exhaled through his mouth. 

Disgusting.

"Summon a fire for me," Buwei told them.

Jet looked at his palm, and remembered how sparks had crackled over his knuckles that morning, how fire had poured out of his mouth the day before. Hesitantly, he pushed, watching it flicker to life in his hand.

It should have made him sick, but he felt alive staring into the heat of it. He felt Zuko's fire come to life beside him, strong but delicate as if it could be crushed with any amount of force put in the wrong place. 

Now that he thought about it, he could feel Zuko breathing in a way that made him intrinsically aware that the other boy was a firebender. Even at this distance with two feet of grass between them, he could feel it, that odd something that separated Zuko from any non bender. 

He had been aware on the ferry. He had to have been. 

"Now turn to each other and trade them," Buwei instructed.

Zuko shifted to face Jet immediately, breathing slowly and deliberately. It made him think of the first night they'd gotten there, when Zuko had reached inside him, and taken control away. He remembered Ba Sing Se too. He remembered Zuko taking his control when he exploded and almost burned down the palace. Before that, when he tried to roast the princess, and before that still, when they'd fought in that cave, when Zuko had picked him up off the floor by his tunic and told him that the Fire Nation was waiting for them.

Zuko held the flame in his palm out to him, and Jet held his own out tentatively. They passed them, and the feeling of Zuko's fire in his hand was different than his own by simple degrees but enough to notice. Jet swallowed hard.

"Continue passing," Buwei said.

They formed a slow circle with their hands, juggling their flames back and forth between each other until the differences didn't stand out anymore, and both fires were more the both of them than either one individually. 

Still, Jet wanted to feel sick, and still he felt giddy instead.

Zuko's eyes were golden on his, golden like the fire in their hands, and Jet remembered just how much he'd liked that when Zuko had only been Lee on that ferry. He'd loved it when the other boy was kneeling in front of him, back pressed to the ship rail, wood the only thing keeping him from falling into the water. Lee's eyes had burned in the dark and that had been what turned him on most. Lee's eyes had almost glowed.

He hadn't even wanted to fuck Lee, he realized- staring into Zuko's scarred eye, he'd wanted to fuck his fire. Lee had been the warmest person he'd ever touched. Lee had tasted like warmth and distant sweetness, and energy like no one else did when they kissed. That had all been fire. Deceptive, deceptive fire. Tricking him. Tricking him again like it always did.

He hated Zuko more than he'd ever hated anyone. 

"When my father trained my brothers and I, we did this regularly. Controlling someone else's fire is difficult for most benders, but it is an important skill to learn. The best way to avoid being burnt by another bender's blast is understanding how to dominate of your opponent's chi. The great Dragon of the West, General Iroh, is famous for developing a technique that redirects lightning, turning his opponent's chi back against them."

"He taught it to me," Zuko said absently, eyes fixed on the fires moving between their hands. Buwei seemed surprised for a moment before he schooled his features. Jet shared the sentiment. What on earth was Zuko doing learning from a tyrant like the Dragon of the West?

"My sister mastered lightning. Uncle said I would need a way to fight back against that kind of bending. He taught me how to redirect it," Zuko explained, and Jet knew the prince was explaining for his sake, but not why. 

Then his brain caught up around the word uncle. Mushi. That innocent looking old man who loved tea. Mushi was the Dragon of the West.

"The Dai Li should have listened," Jet hissed at nothing.

Zuko looked ashamed, the fires in their hands flickered and sputtered as if they wanted to go out, Jet fed them further. It pissed him off that he'd been so thoroughly duped by a couple of mostly strangers. Lee would have been a great Freedom Fighter, but Zuko would have destroyed them.

Zuko would have set them alight, and eaten them from the inside out.

Buwei ignored Jet's comment. "Have you ever had to use it?" he asked. 

"No," Zuko said.

"Well I wouldn't expect you to," Buwei said with slight disappointment.

Zuko's healthy cheek flushed slightly. He looked like Lee had when Jet had hit on him. Bashful and unsure, cute. If he hadn't been a filthy ashmaker, Zuko would have been cute. As it was though, Jet hoped the prince's fire would be the very ironic death of him. Self immolation would be a fitting end for such a creature.

"Stand," Buwei instructed then, "But do not quench the flames. I want you to tell me who's fire you're holding."

Jet looked at Zuko. Zuko was staring at his hand. The prince frowned. "My own?" the boy offered experimentally. 

"Why do you believe this?" the master asked. 

Zuko's frown deepened. "Because it's warm, and it doesn't fight me when I tell it what to do," he said with slightly more confidence.

"Jet," Buwei said then, making Jet's stomach roll sickeningly. "Which fire are you holding?"

Jet stared at the flame in his hand. He couldn't tell. It didn't feel like his own, and yet it didn't feel like Zuko's had. He glared at it. "One of them," He answered.

"Who did it belong to originally?" Buwei asked.

"I can't tell," he said, and he really wanted to sound as sure as Zuko had explaining why he believed the fire in his hand was his own.

"Correct," Buwei said. "There is no longer any difference between these two flames. You both created them together. Neither one of you has complete ownership of either. It does not fight you because it is yours, but it is also not yours. Fire is like an idea. It can be shared and once it has been it belongs to all the people who have touched it. When you take control of someone else's chi, you add your own chi to it, and it becomes yours as well."

Jet shook the fire off his hand, watching it die. He didn't want to create anything with Zuko. Beside him, the prince seemed affronted by having been wrong when Jet was right. The other boy shook his head, and then cupped the flame in both hands, inspecting it carefully.

"Will we move on to basic forms then?" he asked, face suddenly dropping back down into a placid mask as he turned his attention back to their teacher. 

"Assume your stances," Buwei told them. Zuko did not kill the flame. "I want you to practice the technique I just showed you, but on a large scale. Jet, do you know how to produce a fireball?" 

"No," Jet said incredulously. He knew how to anticipate one though. He knew how to feel the air for where the fire would be projected, knew how to doge them even before they'd been manifested. Maybe he should have known he was a bender. 

"It's a very simple technique," Buwei explained.

"Sounds stupid," Jet told him, crossing his arms. 

"Well it's not stupid so much as basic-" Buwei started but Jet interrupted him by making a loud braying noise. Buwei stopped mid sentence, looking entirely confused and affronted.

"Excu-" he began, but Jet cut him off again. "Do you want to learn how to bend or not?" the man shouted, going a bit red in the face. 

"No actually," Jet told him, inspecting his finger nails. "I really don't. What I want is for you to stop talking."

Zuko smacked him on the back of the head. "Do as the master tells you," he hissed.

Jet glared at him before dropping his arms back to his sides and facing the teacher fully once more. "Fine I'll listen," he grumbled, glaring obstinately at the patch of grass he'd singed yesterday.

"Good," Buwei said. "It's much like summoning a flame, but on a slightly larger scale," he explained. Jet watched with reluctant curiosity as the man shifted his weight back, pulling his arm as if about to strike. He knew that combination of moves but he'd never seen it preformed so leisurely before. "And you let it go as soon as it's there."

He punched his fist out toward Zuko, sending a ball of flame spinning at the prince. Jet had a momentary reaction of panic, watching Lee - scarred refugee, Lee, who was running from the Fire Nation too - about to be consumed by the heat of the blast, but then Zuko twisted his hands, killing the flame he held and the flame that was advancing on him in one nearly effortless movement. 

"Now you try," the master told him.

"I don't know-" Jet started, feeling anxiety prickle in his throat.

"Try it," Zuko encouraged. "Aim for me, and I'll kill it before anything gets out of hand," was the assurance he gave then.

He knew how to do this. God if he wanted, he felt like he could blow their minds. His entire technique was just theirs reverse engineered. He'd learned watching their soldiers. He used their moves. But he'd always done them cold, and it had felt better. It had felt like a degree of removal, something that held him above them.

"Do it," Zuko prodded, and Jet hated him so much it wasn't hard not to think, just throw it. 

It came out hot, and angry, and faster than he'd expected. The ball dwarfed Buwei's small controlled blast, rolling up on the prince like a charging rhino. He cut it short after a second, let it go like the master said, and watched it engulf the other boy.

Then, it shifted, seeming to hold still before spiraling the opposite direction - before dying.

Zuko emerged from the center of the heat, untouched, unscathed, a look of pinched concentration on his face. Jet felt his heart leap up into his throat.

"Maybe we need to teach you a bit of self restraint," Buwei said meekly.

"Definitely," Zuko confirmed, frowning as he rubbed his palms together. 

Jet frowned at the grass around Zuko's feet, noting how the blades had wilted and browned from the force of it. The earth died beneath fire.

When they were done, Zuko forced him to bow to Buwei, and lead him off to a history lecture. "We'll have lunch when this is over," he promised, and Jet didn't really look forward to how much pepper they would be using. He'd seen Zuko eat a whole pepper at breakfast like it was nothing despite the fact that Jet could smell the spice on it from across the table. 

There was something seriously wrong with firebenders. 

That was a feeling that only got worse during history lessons. The skewed events they were feeding them. Jet had lived through some of those battles, keeping ears to the roads for news of the Earth Kingdom's advance. The Fire Nation made it sound like a fair fight, and Zuko continually elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up. 

He was sure he'd be black and blue around there by morning. No amount of arguing or blowing up, or heating his skin to scalding could keep the prince from "adjusting his behavior".

If it wasn't for the guards at every turn - the Dai Li lurking somewhere, he knew it, he could smell them - he would have killed Zuko, and the teacher, and probably everyone else in the palace by the lecture's halfway point.

Their history teacher was a severe woman who hated Jet with a passion. Unlike Buwei she seemed to have no patience for his existence and no desire to teach him anything. In fact she was quite openly resentful about having to go back to what she called "a child's curriculum he would understand".

Maybe she wasn't a real ashmaker, but Jet was pretty sure he had more distaste for her than Buwei by far.

"The Fire Nation sacked Yu. There was no real war for it. It was a surprise attack," Jet said as Zuko lead them back toward the garden they did their firebending in. "Yu Dao sprung up overnight, and all the citizens who'd lived there before could do was watch in horror as their meager resistance was laid to waste. Saying that the Fire Nation fought some great battle for it is the most preposterous thing I've ever heard."

"Really?" Zuko asked. He frowned at Jet and then at the hallway floor in front of him. "That's the first I've heard anything like that," he admitted, but to Jet's surprise he didn't defend himself, or claim Jet to be a liar.

A picnic was already laid out for them on the grass when they stepped back out onto it. Jet glared at the food before he noticed a bowl of noodles that were undeniably Earth Kingdom. He stopped, staring at the bowl, and remembering how much effort Zuko had gone through to outfit his room in familiar Earth Kingdom things. Even if none of those things were actually familiar to Jet, nothing he'd ever owned, but things he'd seen other Earth Kingdom people own. 

Zuko was trying. Why?

"You're not going to defend your precious nation?" Jet asked angrily.

Zuko took a cross-legged seat on the blanket someone had spread over the grass. "No," he said softly. "Eat your noodles."

"Why?" Jet questioned. He stayed standing, eying the prince and then the bowl. It was poisoned it had to be. Why would Zuko be being nice it made no sense.

"Because I lived among refugees," Zuko said sternly to his own food. "I've seen what the Fire Nation does. I don't agree with it."

Jet blinked at him blankly before sitting down opposite him, hissing "bullshit" under his breath. He wasn't going to believe a lie like that for a second.


	4. Chapter 4

Jet didn't particularly want to be alone, but there wasn't really anyone he could be with. No one he didn't hate. Zuko was Zuko. Zuko was the prince of the Fire Nation. Li didn't exist. He had to keep reminding himself of these facts. Everyone else was Fire Nation too.

He was the only clay thing surrounded by seas of ash in all direction. Just as much an outsider here as in his home country.

But he didn't want to be alone. 

Alone was what he'd been when his parents died. Alone was what he'd been when the people of his village drove him out, throwing clay pots at him as he ran.

In the forest he'd surrounded himself with people to chase off the loneliness. In Ba Sing Se he'd still had Longshot and Smellerbee there. They'd shared a room. Shared a bed. 

The last thing in the world Jet wanted was to go back there. To after the fires came and took his home away. He'd been alone two whole years before he found Longshot, and they'd been the worst years of his life. Loneliness was the most maddening thing. He didn't know that he could handle that again for any period of time, and whenever he was by himself there it was.

There that fucking feeling was, threatening to steal his humanity and make him into some wispy spirit that couldn't even clutch the ground he walked on with his feet to keep himself from floating away. He felt unreal. Half realized. Broken. He didn't want to be alone.

But when the door to his bedroom closed, it locked. It locked from the outside. What cruelty was it to put the lock to a child's door on the outside? Had Zuko been locked in like this as a child, he wondered and then quickly put that thought out of his mind, reminding himself he didn't care.

He paced the room for a while before turning to the bed, and sitting down heavily. There was nothing to do. There were no windows. There was only one door. He was trapped. He was trapped he couldn't believe he was trapped. It was just like being underground, deep deep beneath Lake Laogai. He tried not to think about it. He shut his eyes and willed that spinning light away. That agent wasn't here. He couldn't be here.

The Dai Li were in the Earth Kingdom in Ba Sing Se. He had to keep telling himself that too.

A thump came from the other side of the wall somewhere behind the Omashu tapestry. He looked toward it in the dark, hardly able to make out even the barest shapes by the dim light creeping past the door.

He wasn't alone, he knew instantly, and the shock of that thought brought fire into his hands without him telling it to come. Light splashed into the room, illuminating it suddenly, and making him blink around at all the walls.

No one was there. The room was still yawningly vacant. How had he managed to sleep here the past two nights? He wanted his trees like never before.

The thump came again, reminding Jet that Zuko's sister slept on the other side of that wall. It started low, but her moaning gradually became louder. She still sounded just like a prostitute. Like she was paid to enjoy it and nothing else. Like she didn't really get anything from whoever her partner was.

If Jet strained his ears he could hear someone talking low and fast, a man's voice. It felt awkward though, so he turned on his side away from them, covering his head with the pillow, trying to block the noise out.

He almost didn't hear the knock on the door, but it came again louder, cutting under the din of sex. 

"Who's there?" he asked defensively.

"It's me," he heard Zuko say from the hallway, voice muffled by the wood and his sister's noisy display. "Can I open the door?"

"Fine," Jet said, a bit more harshly than he meant to. He wasn't sure why he regretted that. He strangled the urge to make sure he hadn't hit a nerve in the prince. 

The door creaked open slowly. 

"Do you," Zuko started awkwardly. "Do you wanna go for a walk or something?" he asked and it occurred to Jet that it was probably horribly awkward to listen to your own sister get fucked. Jet had never thought the walls of a palace would be so thin and yet-

"Sure," he said, just as desperate to be somewhere else right then. Somewhere else and not alone.

Zuko was wearing sleeping clothes, Jet noticed when they were in the semi lit sitting room. They were thinner than his day clothes much like Jet's.

The prince lead the way out into the hallway, but turned the opposite the direction they had taken thus far, ducking through a series of rooms until they were trotting down a stair case and then another. The garden they walked into this time was much larger, clearly wrapping around the palace instead of being seated within it. 

The moon shown down on them, waxing pregnant behind the wisps of clouds. He sighed even though the night was too balmy and hot, turning his face up toward it's light.

"The moon feels almost like a weak sun," Zuko said. Jet looked at him and found the prince's face turned the same way his was, eyes closed. "I was at the North Pole when Zhao killed the moon spirit," he continued. "I thought I'd never get to see it again."

"He killed the moon spirit?" Jet asked. He'd heard about Zhao, Smellerbee's village had been ransacked by that piece of shit.

Zuko nodded.

"How do you even do that?" Jet asked. 

"Shoot a fireball at it according to my uncle," Zuko told him. "It was horrible," he said. "The whole sky went red, and then it went black, and the Avatar rampaged through the fleet, capsizing ships left and right. I watched Zhao die."

The prince looked haunted as he said that. As if he couldn't stomach to watch that murderous pig croak.

"You sound unhappy about that," Jet accused.

"Of course I'm unhappy," Zuko said. "I knew that man. I'd known him since I was a child and he was just a Quartermaster in my father's Navy. I may not have liked him- I may have thought he was a horrible person- but that doesn't mean I wanted to see him die. He-" Zuko cut off, shaking his head. "I don't want to talk about this," he concluded. 

Jet stared at him, and then at the moon. "How'd it come back?" he asked.

"Uncle told me that there was a girl there. I remember her vaguely. She had white hair. She'd been touched by the spirit? Or something? That's why her hair was white. Anyway she sacrificed herself and the moon came back."

"Weird," Jet said.

"Yeah," Zuko agreed. 

They stood there for a while just staring at the moon like a couple of idiots who didn't know what they were looking at. Then, Jet noticed a small tree curling up out of the ground. His fingers itched for it's scratchy looking bark. Nothing like the bark of his own trees, but something. 

He launched himself into a full run over the lawn, past Zuko, ignoring the other boy as he yelled for Jet to wait, and bolted into its loving arms. The branches scratched his hands and swayed under his weight but held firm as he settled into their embrace.

Zuko stared at him blankly, and Jet laughed at how dumb he looked.

"What are you doing?" the prince asked him.

"Climbing a tree," Jet responded.

Zuko blinked.

"Don't you climb trees?" he asked the other boy.

Zuko shook his head gently. "No," he said honestly. Jet laughed harder. 

"What do you climb then?" Jet asked him.

"Buildings mostly," Zuko said. 

"You good at that?" Jet asked.

Zuko screwed up his nose. "Am I good at it?" he parroted incredulously. Jet stopped himself from thinking that was cute. "Am I good at it," he repeated, and followed Jet up into the tree, picking a branch of his own to cling to. His pose looked forced and awkward, completely out of place against the chaos of nature. "Are you secretly a monkey?" he asked.

"Why, yes, I am," Jet told him.

"Then I'm good at climbing buildings," Zuko said, and it was almost boastful. The most boastful Jet had ever seen him. He looked so much like that pretty lie he'd told in Ba Sing Se and Jet wanted - didn't want - almost - almost wanted - almost craved - to kiss him. He dug his nails into the heels of his palms instead.

"When will I get my swords back?" he asked, and he'd been meaning to ask sooner but there just hadn't been the time.

Zuko looked thoughtful for a moment, looking back up at the moon and the clouds and the stars glittering over the city. "Those weird hook things?" he asked.

Jet gawked at him. 

"Yeah. Those weird hook things. Give them back already," he demanded, feeling annoyance flare up beneath his collarbone. 

"Oh those," Zuko said softly. "I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?!" Jet exploded. He pushed himself up on the branches hard and fast enough that the tough little tree swayed wildly.

Zuko's good eye went wide to the whites and he clung to the bark as if for dear life for a moment.

"Where are they?!" Jet shouted, smacking the wood under his hand. Zuko's grip whitened at the knuckles.

"I don't know," Zuko bit softly into the air. 

Jet felt it all go then, all the heat and the anger, and the fuck you he'd been bottling up since Zuko woke him up in the hold of that damned ship and dragged him down onto the docks. "What the fuck?!" he bellowed, springing up into a crouch so that he leaned menacing down into Zuko's space. "What the fuck?!"

"There was a lot of confusion - and the Dai Li -" Zuko began justifying.

"Don't you dare fucking try to blame this on the fuck damned Dai Li! You're the one who got me arrested! If it wasn't for you and your fucking uncle trying to infiltrate Ba Sing Se I would be at home with my Freedom Fighters right now!" Jet screamed, fist falling fast against the furrowed bark. 

Zuko flinched. The prince sat there, tore his eyes away from Jet's and just set himself in a stoic removed manner, refusing to acknowledge what Jet had just said.

"Fuck you!" Jet shouted, striking the tree again. The flames sprung up hot and angry, racing up his arm, and engulfing the humid space in a dry emptiness that was almost reminiscent of summer near the Si Wong.

Zuko jumped away from the flames, springing clear of the tree and staggering a bit as he found his feet on the ground. "Jet stop it!" he snapped.

The motions were made to quell the blaze, but the fire just guttered uselessly around Jet's arm. It licked up along the outside of his sleeve, tickling along the old burn scars through soft linen. "You lost them!" he insisted. "You fucking left them there! How am I supposed to do anything now? Those were my -" he stopped, cutting off his words with unintelligible anger, and slamming his fist into the tree again.

"Jet stop!" Zuko insisted.

Jet rounded on him again, swinging down to the ground as gracefully as Zuko hadn't. He reached for Zuko violently, as if his mind was in his hands and not his head. Fingers synched on shirts and he pulled the prince close. "I should kill you. I should kill you for a million fucking reasons. I hate your fucking guts. You owe me for this. You fucking owe me."

"I know," Zuko bit back, teeth just as gritted as Jet's, face far more pained. "I'll fix this, okay? I promise."

"How?" Jet demanded. "Are you going to go back to the Earth Kingdom and root through the whole fucking infrastructure of Ba Sing Se's ancient ruins?"

"I don't know," Zuko said. "But I'll fix it. I'll make this right by you." He seemed so sincere. So raw and exposed and just like Li. At the train station all Jet had wanted was for Li to make promises to him. Promises he would be bound by.

Jet swallowed, letting his grip on Zuko's shirt slip. The prince slid seamlessly out of his personal space, panting gently.

"In the mean time, I'll help you fill the gap," he said, and Jet liked that for some reason. He wanted Zuko to make more promises. "Do you want me to teach you how to put a fire out?"

That actually sounded like useful firebending to know despite how much Jet hated to admit that. He stammered, unsure of himself, before nodding his head simply. 

Zuko pointed at the tree behind them, which was currently crackling and popping under the heat. "Take your stance," he instructed, toeing at the inside of Jet's ankles. "Now take your hands," he continued, palms fitting warm and soft over the back's of Jet's hands and dragging them up. That puppeted feeling came back, though softer, more pleasant.

When had Jet agreed to this level of contact? When had he said this was okay.

"And smother it," he concluded, as he pulled Jet's hands to a level with his collar bone. Then he began to push down, and Jet felt it. He felt the fire coming in under his reign, and bowing like a thousand subjects - a thousand soldiers. It stopped on it's knees and then was gone all together, corpse curling as wisps into the sky.

Jet let the air escape his chest softly, awed by the power of it.

How many times had he wished he had that power as a child? How many times?

"You're a good bender," Zuko said softly.

Another burst of air came bounding up out his mouth, this time nearly amused.

"Do you want me to train you with the dao?" the prince asked then.

"I - " Jet started. He wasn't sure. It felt like he was relying an awful lot on this boy now. "Sure," he said.

"We could spar," Zuko continued tentatively. He looked suddenly sheepish like maybe he'd just thought better of the suggestion, but when his eyes slid back to Jet's there was this hunger for approval there that Jet had never seen more strongly in anyone else.

He swallowed hard, and nodded. "Yeah, we could spar," he agreed. He was thinking about killing Zuko. It'd be easy if he had weapons. Zuko was trusting him right now. Zuko would assume they were just playing around. It would be easy.

"They're in the armory," Zuko told him, moving to find the ground again, "Come with me."

Jet was starting to climb down after him, when Zuko looked back up and that hunger was still in his eyes. That desperation for something. Jet's stomach flipped, and his face went cold while his hands and feet got hotter than hell. He swallowed again.

Maybe he'd kill Zuko another time. It would be better for this plan he was starting to have. It would give him more information after all. That way he could take down the whole nation from within all at once, cut the head off the dragon instead of just robbing them of their precious crown prince.

Zuko lead the way to the armory, ducking back around the palace, between the notice of guards. Jet realized hey were breaking in as the prince crouched down, moving silently in the dark. It made him think about the Ferry when they'd pilfered that food. He'd been so in awe of his new acquaintance then. It hadn't been what he expected at all when he conscripted a random refugee.

Zuko stopped at the lock, looking at it before looking back at Jet. "You can pick locks, right?" he asked, and it was a dumb question because Jet was Jet.

"Yeah, why?"

"I can't," he admitted.

"You can't?" Jet asked, incredulous.

"I usually just melt them but-" he paused. "It'd be better if no one got in a tiff about a robbery. They might end up punishing the wrong person."

That sounded reasonable. Thoughtful even. Jet shouldered him out of the way a bit too roughly and refused to feel bad about it as he grabbed the pin out of the other boy's hair. "I'm borrowing this," he said, and plunged it into the lock before Zuko could protest.

Jet pulled his own out to help, and the lock popped open after a minute or two of quiet, annoyed squawking from Zuko. "Thanks," Jet said, handing it back

Zuko glared at him as he took it. "This is a priceless heirloom," he said.

"Why the fuck are you wearing it in your hair then?" Jet asked, pushing into the armory. It was dark inside, and he was about to complain when Zuko summoned a little fire in the palm of his hand.

"Shut up, peasant," he snipped in a way that almost seemed more phony than Lee had. The prince crossed the room to a chest nearly silent. Unlike the door, the chest wasn't locked and Zuko opened it easily. "Here they are," he said, lifting a pair of dao free. 

He presented them almost ceremonially, balancing the blades on the back of his wrist, still holding that flame for light. Jet took them, and Zuko turned back around, reaching back into the chest. He was bent over. He wasn't expecting anything. He was vulnerable. Jet could just do it. He could kill him. Right then. Right there.

It would be revenge for everything the Fire Nation had ever done. His grip was hard on the hilts. He could kill Zuko right now. 

Zuko stood back up, holding a second pair of dao. Both pairs were very similar to the ones he'd carried on the ferry. These weren't the same ones though, their pummels were black rather than green and gold. The prince tested the weight gently, before using them to gesture back out to the door.

They locked up behind themselves and skirted back around to the tree Jet had sent up in flame.

Zuko faced him, and bowed before dropping into stance. Jet mirrored him, admiring the similarities in their footing. The dao in his hands were heavier than he remembered his shang gou being.

"The weight's father forward," the prince commented. 

"I noticed," Jet said, keeping his eyes on the blades. He swept one out, slashing, following it with the other. Zuko made a high noise, blocking almost as if on instinct.

Back in Ba Sing Se he'd only gotten the chance to fight Li once. Certainly he'd wanted more than that though.

They broke away and it was a bit of a rush watching Zuko swing for the next strike. Jet went to grab the prince's swords in the hooks of his own, but these were dao not shang gou. Zuko slid through his defense, unbalancing him, chasing him backward across the lawn.

They were rather evenly matched, and Zuko was quick thinking, exploiting the weakness. Zuko won the first round, pinning Jet to the floor beneath his knees, and holding his fists in bending position despite the weapons in his hands. 

"Can you bend while using your swords?" Jet asked, chest heaving under the caps of the prince's knees.

"Yeah," Zuko said, rolling to the side. Jet cleared his throat, trying not to let it show just how bad having those knuckles pointed at his face had shaken him. "I can teach you if you like. It's something I had to work out on my own. Most firebenders think they're above traditional weaponry."

"Maybe," Jet said. He was still unsure weather or not he wanted to learn bending at all, and honestly, it sort of made him nervous thinking about it so he rushed Zuko just as the other boy had shrugged his shirt off. 

The prince's sleeping pants were loose, and thin, and it was more than clear he wasn't wearing anything underneath them now that his shirt wasn't covering his groin anymore. Jet tried to focus on the other boy's face, the next attack, but Zuko was almost Lee, and Lee had been so good.

He lost the second round too.

Rising, covered in dust and grass, with a swear, he shrugged his own shirt off. This time he waited for Zuko to make the first move again, and the struggle resumed.

Zuko won the third round, and the forth and the fifth, smirking at the look of frustration on Jet's face. But at least each little bout went longer than the last, and Jet could tell that by the end of it, Zuko was starting to really feel the fatigue.

"You need to work on holding out," Jet said, offering Zuko a hand up. Zuko batted it away, choosing to lay sprawled on the lawn.

"I've been told," he said with an air of exasperation as Jet sat down heavily next to him. Now that they weren't fighting anymore, Jet remembered how thin Zuko's pants were, eyes drawn naturally downward by his teenaged mind. The prince was half hard, dick thick and obvious between his thighs.

Jet's mouth was dry but he swallowed anyway, and tried to look at something else. He was a bit hard himself, he realized, and that made him think of that morning, Zuko's face as dick had met ass through their clothing.

He needed help. He needed Smellerbee to kill him. There was something wrong with his brain that he was actually thinking about fucking an ashmaker, and more than once a day too. 

Zuko groaned as he sat up and that wasn't helping anything, didn't he know how much of a nuisance he was? Jet considered punching him in the face again, but they'd been getting along so well and for his plan to work they needed to get along. 

"You're good," Zuko said, and Jet's dick twitched heavily. 

"I've been told," Jet parroted. Zuko looked like he thought about wanting to laugh for a split second. 

"They're probably done now," the prince said then, looking back toward the palace. "And it's late. We've been out here at least an hour. Are you ready to go back in?"

Jet thought about it, and no he wasn't. He didn't want to be alone. He never wanted to be alone again. Not that he could tell an ashmaker that. 

"Hey," Zuko said faintly, and Jet felt the prince tug on his earlobe gently. "Are you ready?"

"Yeah," Jet said, but the lie came out almost as feeble as one of Zuko's instead of strong and undetectable like it usually would. 

Zuko actually looked concerned and that was the most disconcerting thing in the world. "Do you have trouble sleeping?" he asked and what kind of fucking question was that? Of course Jet had trouble sleeping.

"Do you like the smell of barbeque?" Jet asked.

"Yeah?" Zuko answered hesitantly.

"Well I don't," Jet said. Zuko's confusion could have made even Longshot laugh. God Jet missed Longshot. Longshot had been his best fucking friend. What was he supposed to do without his best friend, or Smellerbee- his right hand? 

"It reminds me how my parents smelled," he added, and Zuko's face fell faster than the Avatar had when his sister shot him in the back.

The prince's gaze shifted, staring past Jet into something that had happened a long time ago. Jet looked at the scar on his face, and wondered it if burned still, or maybe it just itched now. Zuko swallowed. "I can't forget," he said softly. "I know what you mean about the smell," he added. And then even softer, gesturing to his face, his fucking hideously burned face, "I can still smell it."

"What happened?" Jet asked.

Zuko's face screwed into a grimace. He looked like he'd be sick. "I made a mistake," he said, but that kind of scar wasn't a mistake. The was a deliberate action splayed out over the left side of Zuko's face that would be there the rest of his life.

"Hell of a mistake," Jet said. 

Zuko drew his knees up to his chin, and wrapped his arms around his legs. "I know," he whispered. 

All thoughts of sex were gone out of Jet's head, and he had the feeling he wouldn't be getting hard again until morning when his bladder was just too full for him not to be. There was a long silence during which they looked at anything but each other, both too naked, and young, and vulnerable to acknowledge that anyone else was there to see them. 

"We could," Zuko started before trailing off. He still staunchly refused to look Jet in the face. "Sleep together," he finished.

Never mind then. Jet was definitely thinking about sex now. "Won't that be bad for those rumors?" he asked.

"No one has to know," The prince said. "I wake up before the servants."

"Okay," Jet said, and it was kind of sick, but he was only agreeing in the hopes of maybe getting some. 

They both gathered up their shirts, and then started the walk back to the prince's rooms. Zuko's room was much bigger than Jet's. Not much of a surprise really. He had said the queen used to keep this room after all. It did have windows. Two of them, that showed a view of a beautiful little garden with a pond, and a tree, all walled in. There was a door to the garden but it had been blocked with an armoire similar to the one in Jet's room, just a bit smaller and more Fire Nation.

The bed was tucked against a wall in an alcove deep into the room, and it was massive. If Jet had thought this own bed was oversized, this one was gargantuan. At least six people would be able to fit side by side in it, not accounting for how much extra space that would leave at the foot.

Zuko dropped his shirt on the floor before shucking his pants, and now Jet couldn't _stop_ thinking about sex. Fuck was there anything else to think about?

The prince ripped the covers back and slid into bed like he'd been waiting years to do so. Jet watched the backs of his thighs as he did, remembering what it'd felt like to have them in his hands on the ferry. Li had been such a nice piece of ass. The spirits had all nodded in agreement and laughed about how fucking hard it would be not to sleep with him after he'd been born.

"I'm not expecting you to sleep on the floor," Zuko said, when Jet had started casting around for what he was supposed to do now. Oh. This was going to be incredibly difficult. It'd been two months since the ferry, and Jet hadn't really been stumbling into all the fucking ever since he and Li had parted ways on the docks. 

"Take your pants off before you get in the bed," Zuko told him snippily when he tried to crawl under the covers. "You'll track all that grass and dirt in."

Jet stared at the pants for a moment, worried. Fuck it though. If Zuko was going to be pissy about not ever fucking again, and then expect Jet to sleep naked next to him in a bed, he'd just have to deal with the consequences. He shucked his pants, and climbed under the blankets, fully aware that he was seconds away from the beginnings of wood. 

Zuko stayed on the opposite side of the bed, and miles of mattress stretched between them cool and uncaring. It was probably a good thing. Certainly the only thing keeping Jet from having a honeymoon with an ashmaker on fucking Fire Nation soil. God he wanted to though. 

Li had smelled so good. A bit like smoke, and sweet meats. Zuko didn't smell any different, and he knew that very well from being close during their sparring.

He turned his back toward the prince, and closed his eyes, and pretended he couldn't feel how warm Zuko was even at this distance. Simply aware as he was of the fire under the other boy's skin.


	5. Chapter 5

There was someone warm tangled up in Jet, and they were moving, and he didn't want that. He groaned, and grabbed them by the neck, pulling them down until their mouths were pressed together.

Wow someone was warm, and nice, and tasted like bittered lips. Someone smelled a little like smoke, and fruit, and Jet was hard - probably mostly because he'd been sleeping all night - but that didn't mean he didn't want to shove his boner up against someone warm.

Someone made a noise in the back of their throat, thumping him on the chest, and pulling away. Jet whined.

"I told you we can't do that!" Zuko snapped.

Jet opened is eyes, but it was hard to manage. What fucking time was it? The light in the room was silvery blue. Early morning? The sun wasn't even up yet, was it?

"The fuck are you doing awake?" Jet asked incredulously.

"Getting molested by peasants apparently," Zuko said, fighting the blankets to move away. He made a disgusted face as he wiped a hand over his chest.

Jet laughed at him. That must have been his drool. "That's not what you sai-" he started but Zuko slammed a hand down hard over his mouth, cutting him off. The prince face was almost an inch away, palm all that really separated them.

"You're such an asshole, Jet! And as for what you claimed yesterday: I didn't choke on your cock at all! You are no where near big enough to-"

Jet rolled the prince onto his back, pinning the other boy's wrists above his head and cutting him off beautifully. "Oh really? Not big enough to choke you? How many dicks have you been sucking, your majesty?" He stressed the honorific mockingly.

"He's sucked at least three that I know of," a sharp, feminine voice said somewhere behind him. Jet froze. Zuko looked pale as a sheet terrified beneath him.

Jet turned to look over his shoulder. Zuko's sister. The crazy bitch was leaning against the wall. One of the windows to the garden was open, clearly her point of entry.

"He didn't tell you you were the first did he?" she asked, and yeah. Yeah he had. "I'm sorry. It seems you've been deceived. My brother is a professional virgin."

Zuko made a choking sound in his throat, and struggled under Jet's hands. Jet let him up, and the other boy scrambled backward, covering himself the best he could with his covers. His sister was younger right? Why was Zuko so scared of her? Jet glared in her general direction, not caring to cover anything.

"Azula get out of my room!" Zuko demanded. His voice sounded a lot more sure than he looked.

"Why?" she asked. "Things were just getting good between you and your boy toy here," She paused, looking Jet over, and then looking at her brother. "I want to watch," she said.

"What?" Jet asked.

"You heard me," she said imperiously. "The two of you will fuck, and I'll watch."

Jet looked at Zuko, but Zuko was looking at her, both his eyes wide, the scarred one straining to match it's healthy counter part.

"If you don't do it I'll tell father what I saw," she said. Her voice was half sing song, and Jet looked at Zuko, trying to understand if this was actually serious.

Zuko opened his mouth as if he were about to protest, but she caught him with a glare, and his jaw clattered shut. It took a moment before he found his fight again. "You can't expect me to just-"

"What? Preform for me?" she asked. "I always have though. Father didn't knock mother up for no reason. They had you to _serve_ me."

Zuko glared at nothing in particular, looking lost and confused. "I won't break the law when I'm only just home."

"But I told you to," she reasoned.

"Azula-"

"I'll tell father," the princess countered.

Zuko looked between them pensively before leaning back over, and pressing his mouth against Jet's.

"What the fuck?" Jet asked, pushing away to look wildly between the two of them. "What the fuck is this?"

"Just do what she says, Jet," Zuko told him. He sounded almost exasperated.

"Why the fuck would I-"

"I'll tell father," Azula repeated.

"Please," Zuko begged and it would have been hot if this wasn't the circumstance.

"I don't-" he started, but Azula was dangerous watching them. "I-"

Zuko pulled him back in for another kiss, and Jet felt sick, but the prince was giving it his fucking all. Kissing like he was doing it for his life, and apparently he was if what he'd said yesterday was true. Jet knew it wasn't. Zuko was just paranoid. No father would kill his son for something so little.

Jet tried to push him away, and then Zuko's hand was on his dick, kneading him through the comforter, and that felt like fucking heaven. He groaned, and Azula made a soft "oh" sound as if she found that genuinely interesting. He wanted to be concerned with her presence, but Zuko was distracting.

"I want you to fuck him, Zuzu," Azula said, and Zuko's eyes cut away toward her. "Show me the peasant hasn't made a woman out of you."

Zuko swallowed. When he met Jet's eyes again, there were traces of fear in his face. Who would be so scared of their father?

Zuko moved to turn Jet onto his stomach. Jet had was about to protest, but Azula stopped her brother short. "Ah, ah, big brother," she said. "Take your time. I don't want you to rush and break him."

Zuko winced, and Jet looked at Azula. She looked fucking evil. Zuko didn't seem the evil ashmaker he was but she filled out the form perfectly. She was what he imagined every Fire Nation woman was like, and just like the rest of them, she had no power over him.

"No," he said, pushing Zuko back, this time with finality. "I'm not doing this." Not that he hadn't done similar things before plenty of times. Money was money, and some people liked to watch. He'd even had strange requests before, met people who wanted him to pretend to be a brother or son. He'd been most of the places sex wasn't supposed to go, but these people were Fire Nation, and he didn't see a single coin.

"Jet," Azula said, and when had she even learned his name? "The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."

He felt so honored.

Everything went out of focus. Zuko was still there, and Zuko was warm, and he was doing things that felt good. Azula was a friend. How had he not realized that? She just wanted to help. She just wanted to make him feel good, and so did Zuko, and this was okay. Really this was fine. Why had he been so worried about it?

Zuko's skin tasted a bit burnt, like bone crackers. He dragged his tongue up and over the other boy's scar and it tasted different, felt different, more like nothing than actual skin. Zuko made this noise, and he liked that noise.

Things were warm, and blurry. He saw Azula smiling at them when Zuko's fingers were in him. She looked nice, he thought. Maybe they could be friends. He wanted to make her happy. Wow he'd missed the feeling of having something in him, how long had it been? He hadn't gotten that far with Li on the Ferry. They'd sucked each other off, and felt each other up but something had gotten in the way of any more, and wasn't Jet supposed to find the Avatar's Bison for him?

Zuko was in him properly, and he was warm and thick and good. Jet moaned. Zuko was tugging on his hair just enough to barely hurt. His hands fisted in the sheets. They were red sheets. Hadn't he been sleeping in a bed roll? Fuck Zuko was hitting the right spot.

Fuck he was gonna cum. Fuck. Wasn't there someone else here? He heard a girl saying something, but it didn't really matter, he was already doing what he was supposed to. Fuck Zuko was good. Spirits he was close. He was gonna-

He came, and he could feel Zuko following him, fingers digging into his hips hard. There'd be bruises that he could show to Longshot and Smellerbee. He could brag about getting laid, and how good it felt. Zuko swore and it was hot when he spilled inside him, hot enough that Jet could feel it fill him up. Fuck that was nice. It was good. He groaned and shuddered and maybe he was coming a little more, he wasn't sure. It didn't matter.

Zuko pulled out of him, and Jet heard him talking to his sister. It wasn't important. He felt heavy, and good, and fucked raw. He closed his eyes. It would only be a minute or two and they were all friends here. He was safe.

He was upside down on the bed, head cushioned on the blankets rather than the pillows. He blinked his eyes rapidly, trying to clear sleep out of them. Zuko had been here. Where was Zuko? Where was Li? He made a confused noise, and looked around.

There was sleep fog in his eyes so he rubbed at them. The sun was out full force, streaming through the windows.

"Jet?" Zuko was sitting across the bed.

"Hey," Jet said softly. He felt good, and sated. Had they fucked? They'd fucked. He smiled at the other boy. He thought to ask where Li was, but there was something wrong with Zuko's face.

"My sister used the words or whatever," he said. Jet blinked at him in confusion.

"What?" he asked.

"The words, you know? The Dai Li words," the prince explained

He wasn't making any sense.

"Azula's terrible," He said. "I'm sorry."

"Are you okay?" Jet asked reaching out toward the other boy. Zuko flinched back visibly.

"Please don't touch me," he said. Holy shit had Zuko ever said please before?

The hazy feeling in Jet's head was gone very very suddenly. He propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the other boy, really looked. There was a hollowness in Zuko's eyes, that resonated in Jet's stomach like the smell of smoke did. It sent chills down his spine to see the ghosts of some war lingering on the other boy's face from what seemed out of nowhere.

"She made us," Zuko said despondently. "I've never really understood what she got out of this-" he cut off. His lips were trembling. They were wet Jet noticed, probably from being bitten. "You just sort of zone out and its creepy," Zuko said, hiding his head between his knees.

What the fuck was going on?

Jet sat up properly, reaching out again to the other boy. He didn't know how to deal with how clearly distraught Zuko was.

"Stop it!" Zuko snapped when Jet's hand was hovering over his skin just ready to touch down. Jet jerked back. "I don't want to be touched!" Zuko continued. "Get out!"

Jet frowned. He didn't know what to do.

"Go!" Zuko roared. "Get out! Get out now!"

Stupidly, Jet found his feet, and tripped into his dusty sleep pants, still dirty from sparring the previous night. He tugged his shirt on over his arms, and tied it, never taking his eyes off Zuko huddled on the bed. Then he backed out of the room slowly, closing the door behind him.

"He's very distraught," Azula said when he'd closed the door. He turned around and found her sitting on the couch, eating a bowl of little red things with her fingers. "Fire flake?" she offered, holding the bowl out to him.

He shook his head, and she wrinkled her nose. "Wouldn't want your dirty peasant fingers on my food anyway," she said dismissively. He felt like he should be offended, but he was honestly too confused to manage it.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"You mean with Zuzu?" She returned. He nodded. "Oh he's just upset about me making him play with his toys for me. It's funny really because he's perfectly happy to play with mine."

"I don't-"

"Understand? Well of course you don't, you're a peasant," she said patronizingly. He did manage offense this time. She kissed her teeth, staring at one of the little red flakes. "Maybe I pushed too hard though. I haven't gotten him this worked up since we were little."

"Whatever," she added, putting the bowl down on the cushion next to her, and standing up. "It really was lovely entertainment."

"What?" he asked.

She turned back to him with the fakest expression of innocence he'd ever seen. "Him fucking you for me," she said. Jet thought he would vomit as she strolled out the door like this whole situation was the most normal thing in the world.

That was right, she'd made Zuko- How had she done that? Jet had been about to leave. He was getting up, going for his pants, how had she stopped him? What had she even done? Had he decided it was alright? He must have. There wouldn't be any other reason he stayed. Fuck! Everything was so fuzzy.

Why would he ever think it was okay to let someone fuck him for their sister's amusement? Why hadn't he fought his way out of that? What had she done? She'd said something. What the fuck had she said?

One thing was for sure, this was a scam. Zuko, the Fire Prince, feeling bad about tricking someone was completely preposterous. They'd done this together. They were in this together. They were trying to trick him into trusting Zuko.

Bullshit. They didn't know anything about him. They couldn't manipulate him. He'd been through the war on the front lines as a child. He was smarter than they were. He had to be. Unlike these rich little fuckers he'd had to fight for everything he ever got. They'd lived a life of luxury, and they thought that made them smarter, but they were just book smart. They couldn't live in the real world on their own. They were stuck here in this fucked up little terrarium.

The servant who slept in the room next to Jet's came out, and seemed surprised to see him standing there. "Breakfast will be ready shortly," he said quickly. Jet nodded, but that didn't fucking matter. He didn't care.

He sat down on the couch, and refused to allow the staff to force him to get dressed. He didn't wanna look at them, or deal with them. Zuko didn't come out even when breakfast was there, and what was that motherfucker's game anyway? Jet hated him. He hated him. He'd kill him. He would. Zuko would be the last one he killed. The one who had to watch all the carnage.

Why is he so afraid of his father? Some stupid voice in his head asked, and Jet would have torn himself apart trying to kill that piece of shit voice if the door hadn't opened then. Zuko was perfectly dressed, and Jet wondered if he'd done that by himself or if he'd had to ask help like most nobility seemed to.

"Take this food away, Na," he ordered, and the man rushed to bustle the table out the door. "We need to go to class," Zuko said. Jet thought of protesting, but decided against it. He followed Zuko silently, keeping a good distance from the other boy.

Master Buwei frowned once again at the bruises on their faces, before frowning at how stiffly and far apart they stood. Jet just about fried him right there. They spent the lesson drilling basic forms, Zuko was particularly strict, stopping often to criticize Jet's footing, or movement. The other boy did not touch him though, and he stayed at least six feet away at all times. Like he thought if he and Jet touched it would burn the way fire was supposed to.

Once again, Buwei had them end their lesson by juggling fireballs between them. Not that Jet wanted to share shit with Zuko. Jet hoped he'd scorch the prince. Maybe Zuko would burn. Maybe he could take the pretty half of his face too. If he could, Jet vowed he'd keep it as a trophy, buy a house one day, and mount it on the wall inside.

They were quiet in Etiquette, and in Calligraphy and Reading. They didn't speak over lunch, or after when they sat for art lessons, nor after that when the music instructor was with them. They didn't even talk in Politics and Strategy. Zuko had a rotating class schedule. The only thing that seemed to be fixed was Firebending with Master Buwei in the mornings. Jet hated every second of it.

"You didn't wash yesterday," Zuko accused at one point, but that was the only thing that passed between the two of them verbally.

They were walking back to Zuko's rooms for dinner, when Azula stopped them. Her entourage was in toe, both girls watching from a bit of a distance.

"You're joining us for dinner," she informed her brother. Zuko refused to look her in the eyes. Jet tried to ignore the odd pageant. Their manipulation didn't matter. He didn't care. They couldn't convince him of shit. He knew what the truth was.

"It'll be lovely, just us and our friends. Maybe your little dirt-ape can be entertainment," she suggested.

Fire snapped over Jet's knuckles. He went to hurt her, but Zuko was between them before Jet could raise his hand.

"You will leave him out of this," he hissed. With his back turned to Jet, he sounded almost actually intimidating.

"I'll do what I want, Zuzu," Azula crooned. "If you get in my way, I might feel the need to tell Mai what I saw this morning."

The thin girl behind her straightened like an angry moose lion. "Tell me what?" she asked, eyes hard on Zuko. Jet saw the Prince physically flinch away.

"Nothing," Azula said. "If my brother's not in the mood to spoil sport that is."

The air was tense in the moment of silence that followed. Suddenly, Azula was drawing into Zuko's space, and Jet watched in awe as the odd power dynamic played out in front of him. Zuko had the size, and the weight and probably the experience to win, but he wouldn't even start trying to fight her.

Focusing on the both of them, Jet felt it, her flickering blue flames so hot they felt cold and nothing like anything else licking up around her insides and leeching heat from the air. Maybe that was why Zuko wouldn't try. It wasn't right. Jet knew shit about fire and still he knew it wasn't right.

"Let's have fun tonight," she said, putting her hands on his chest and running them up to tangle her fingers together behind his neck. It looked strangely intimate between siblings. Zuko made a motion as if to struggle free but it was aborted. "Please, Zuzu. You're a big boy now, you don't have to ruin everything anymore. You know father only gets disappointed with you when you tattle."

The prince's hand came up, and wrapped around her waist as if on instinct, holding her close in an odd half hug. It was the kind of pose Jet had only ever seen between lovers. Her lips were at his ear.

He saw her lips move, but he didn't see what she said. Zuko's fingers went red from the force of the blush that overcame him, and he jerked back, the hand on her waist suddenly pushing instead of pulling.

"Azula there are people!" he exclaimed quickly, before pulling completely out of her reach. He wiped the hand that had held her on his pant leg. Jet watched him, and he looked absolutely shaken.

She shrugged, turning on her heel to lead the way.

Dinner was arranged in a room with a table just like hundreds of other rooms with a table he'd seen within the palace. One whole wall was cut out into arches that lead out onto a balcony with a view of a lush garden. It would have been beautiful if it wasn't Fire Nation.

Zuko sat down next to his sister, and Jet hesitated before sitting next to him. He felt safer next to the evil he sort of knew. Azula's girls sat across from them, the thin one staring angrily dead ahead into Zuko's face. Jet watched Zuko force a weak smile at her, and ask how things had been the last three years.

Three years? Zuko hadn't been here for three years?

"The usual," she said, face a blank mask. Zuko looked ashamed. "We all got along without you to be honest." She paused then, cocking her head a bit. "Secrets don't make friends, Zuko."

Jet felt how upset the other boy was. It was odd. Made him kind of sick honestly. Who'd known fire could be so expressive if you were just paying attention. He tried to stop.

"I'm not keeping any secrets," the prince lied, badly. Jet almost felt sorry for him, looking down the table and seeing Azula smile at his floundering. He didn't understand any of the social politics he was observing. The culture shock still had him reeling a bit.

"Don't torture him, Mai," Azula said. She offered Zuko a mocking smile, and patted the back of his hand as if she sympathized. Zuko snatched his hand back.

"Don't touch me!" he snapped.

"Still so prissy," his sister tittered. "How do you stand him, Mai?"

"I don't know," Mai said. She didn't bother to break her piercing concentration on the prince.

"Well it's time we had dinner!" Azula announced. She waved her finger in the air, and ducked out of the conversation to give a long set of complicated instructions to the servant who responded to her.

"Don't you trust me anymore?" Mai asked. Zuko flinched.

"A lot has changed. It's been three years," he explained in a hushed tone.

"I can see that," Mai responded.

Jet looked at the girl sitting across from him, she looked bubbly. He couldn't remember her name. She smiled at him, all charm and round, blushing cheeks. He must have pulled a face in response without meaning to because the smile didn't last long. She had a fantastic pout. She could have made a career as a professional pouter.

Azula rejoined the conversation, and the unhappy couple next to Jet stopped their bickering instantly. Neither of them made eye contact with anyone.

"What fun did I miss?" the princess asked, looking the table over.

"Mai is so so mad at Zuko for lying about something because she thinks he doesn't trust her, but Zuko says it's not that he doesn't trust her so much as "things have changed"," the girl across from Jet explained. It was an apt explanation. Both Zuko and Mai turned to glare at her silently.

She shrank away from the onslaught like the pretty little coward she was. Jet wanted to laugh in her chubby little Fire Nation face.

"Thank you Ty Lee," Azula said benevolently. Then she sat up straighter, folded her hands over each other, and schooled her face into a placid expression that didn't hide the cruelty in her eyes. "Have the both of you had the chance to properly meet my brother's new boy toy?" she asked. Her tone was almost gleeful.

"No," Mai said blankly as Ty Lee said "He's cute."

Jet made a face at her again, but it just made her smile more brightly this time. Disgusting.

"He's a peasant, Ty Lee," Azula said. "Peasants aren't cute. They're laughable." Jet's hands curled into hard little fists on the table cloth, but Zuko held a hand up to still him. Jet almost vomited fire on it.

"Have your dog-monkey introduce himself, Zuko," the princess prompted.

Her brother winced. "This is Jet," he said. Jet wanted to punch him. He opened his mouth to argue that he didn't need a royal introduction, but Zuko caught him with a hard look out the corner of his scarred eye. It was ghastly. Jet shut his mouth, and thought better of the outburst. Azula made him wholly nervous and he wanted the bit of protection Zuko seemed to offer.

That morning, the Prince and Princess had reminded him just how much power the Fire Nation really had wether he wanted to admit they had it or not. He didn't have anything to loose that was true, but that didn't mean he lacked a self preservation instinct. Just thinking about it, his body ached where Zuko had touched him, the bruises on his hips throbbing.

He felt decidedly like eating would make him sick.

"Hello, Jet!" Ty Lee said with an enthusiastic wave.

"Hi," Mai offered.

The food was coming. It saved him having to respond. A line of servants came out with plates and trays of food, encircled the table. Jet watched the man behind him lift his arm up, and before he knew what was happening there was food everywhere. The sound of a metal tray clattering to a stand still on the floor filled the room as Jet pinned the guy to the table.

"Jet!" Zuko yelled, his tone strong and scolding. "Let that man go! He's just doing his job, he's putting food on the table!"

Jet blinked at the terrified servant now wedged between him and the edge of the table. There'd been someone reaching over his head It was only natural he defend himself. Especially considering this man was Fire Nation. He snarled, and felt him whimper.

Zuko's hand was on the back of his neck, and that feeling from the first night was back, like he'd reached inside Jet's body and taken control from the inside. Against his own will it seemed, his fingers eased their grip, and let the man up.

"Sit down!" Zuko instructed as the servant scampered away. Jet did just as slowly and reluctantly as he had let the man go. The minute he was seated in his chair again, Azula was laughing. Someone shoved Jet's chair up against the table, pinning him there a bit too tightly. There were people bustling about to clean up.

"When they put the food on the table, they will reach over your head to do it," Zuko explained. "No one is trying to kill you." The prince let go, and Jet's neck was suddenly very cold where his hand had been.

Jet refused to look at him. Azula was still laughing. Ty Lee was giving him a sympathetic look. He hated her.

The princess let out a particularly shrill shriek and slapped the table as the food was placed. "Did you just bend his chi?" she asked as if completely astonished. Jet had no idea what she was talking about.

"Yes," Zuko said harshly.

"Goodness, three years has been a long time. Last I heard most people only learn tricks like that in bed," she teased.

"Uncle thought it would be important-"

"You're lying," she accused. "I know about Zhao."

Zuko's face went pale. He looked like he was about to sputter but he restrained himself at the last moment. Jet looked at Mai. She looked absolute baffled, a bit lost.

"You fucked Admiral Zhao?" Jet asked incredulously. If the person who was clearly the girlfriend was too shocked to bother commenting, he'd have to step up to the plate. '

Zuko said nothing. He stared tight lipped down at his own food. Azula gave another tittering laugh.

"That's a disgusting insinuation," Zuko said, and from the tone in his voice it was clear he was lying, but Jet couldn't feel mad at him for it. He didn't even feel repulsed. It just made him want to kill Zhao more because there was one grain of truth there that he could suss from the rest.

Zuko found Zhao disgusting.

He ignored the observation. Zuko had fucked Zhao and he hadn't liked it probably, but he'd done it. It didn't matter why. There was a quiver in the other boy's fingers as he picked up his chopsticks. Shame. Good. He should be ashamed.

"Anyway, Jet," Azula said, then thought better of herself. "Poor Boy," she corrected. Jet wished the fire burning in his belly would just swallow him up. "My father has questions about you."

Zuko had said something about that, hadn't he? Jet looked from the Princess to the Prince for some sign of something, he wasn't sure what, but Zuko's head was still hanging over his plate, face grave and shameful.

"He wants to know what's so interesting about you that my darling brother needs to drag you all the way back to a mother nation you've never even seen."

Jet considered telling her it was because his dick tasted so good the lovely prince couldn't go without it, but something stopped him. Something which felt an awful lot like a moral compass. He seethed on that, but Zuko had said they'd be dead for something of that sort even if Jet didn't understand.

"Zuko found out I can firebend. He thought I needed to be enlightened to the glory of the culture that ruined my life," he explained to her.

"Oh," she said. "Not a patriot then. Figures. Let's begin eating shall we?"

As soon as she said it, Zuko began shoving food into his mouth as quickly as possible, picking his plate clean at an alarming rate. What was most surprising about it was how silently he ate though. When his plate was clear, he grabbed more food off the platters that had been set in the center of the table, and began eating again.

"Three years and my brother's been replaced with a wolf-bat," Azula said. She almost sounded fond. 

Mai looked absolutely astonished. Jet kind of felt the same. When they'd been eating alone, Zuko hadn't been nearly this fastidious about shoving everything he possibly could into his face. "You'll make yourself sick," the girl tried, but Zuko ignored her until his second plate was clear.

"I'm finished," he said, around a last mouthful. Jet wanted to laugh. That wasn't how royalty was supposed to eat at all. He'd also filled himself up entirely before anyone else but Azula managed to take more than two bites.

Jet wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about his own food as Zuko had seemed. He glared at his plate as the prince called for his glass to be refilled twice. What were they drinking, he wondered, tipping his cup to peer inside.

Wine if he could tell right. Zuko had given up on having the servants refill his cup by the time Jet was through his eighth round of picking at his plate, and was simply hogging the bottle to himself. It seemed like his goal was to finish the thing off by his onsies.

"I stressed him out," Jet heard Azula whisper to Mai. Zuko stiffened, and set his cup back down on the table.

"I'm full," Zuko announced. "I think I'll retire to my chambers."

He went to stand up, but Azula had him around the wrist before he could really leave his seat. "Isn't it rude to abandon us before we've finished ourselves?" she asked innocently. "I mean your own charge has only just started eating."

Not that Jet was hungry. He'd kissed someone who'd probably kissed Zhao the Sideburned. 

Zuko made an odd little noise in his mouth, and sat back down.

It had only been about three minutes since the meal had officially started, and already the Prince's face was slightly flushed from drink.

"Where did you learn to eat like a starving land-whale anyway?" the Princess asked.

Zuko stared into his cup a moment. "Mess on the ship," he said.

"Oh?"

"We had to finish before our watch started," he explained.

"You served watch? But Zuzu, you're nobility. Surely father would have seen that it's beneath you to- that's right," she said suddenly. "He decided he didn't want you, and you'd have to fend for yourself because you were too weak to be worthy of your station."

Zuko finished off the wine in his cup and poured another one. Azula was grinning like she'd just found a succulent newborn baby to eat live.

Jet glared at his own chopsticks. He didn't think anything had ever been more awkward than this, and the two girls across the table seemed to agree. They continually shared furtive glances with each other, and then with Zuko.

"Will you keep me company tonight?" she asked. Zuko's upper lip was slightly stained from the wine. He frowned.

"I'm not a child anymore," he told her, but there was no heat in his words, and he was starting to look a little glassy eyed. Drunk. Jet wondered if he'd succeeded in numbing whatever he'd been so desperate to numb.

"But it's been so long," Azula complained.

"Only if you leave him out of this," Zuko hissed.

She faked hurt. "Don't you wanna show Mai and Ty Lee your pet's little trick?" she asked.

"No," he said, and he opened his mouth again to continue but Azula cut him off.

"You're not in the position to be making negotiations with me," she said harshly. It sent a shiver down Jet's spine. Her too hot fire snapped inside her and the air seemed to grow heavier with it. "I want you to show them. You remember how I did it this morning."

Zuko's face was grave and sort of whitewashed when he turned to Jet. The drink still gave his cheeks a little color but other than that he was all sallow. "Jet," he said hesitantly. His lips were wet and dark from the wine. "The Earth King has invited you to Lake Laogai."


	6. Chapter 6

For a moment, Jet had no idea where he was. The room was dark save for a few slivers of light falling in around a door. Was he in Ba Sing Se? It certainly wasn't his forest. Maybe he was at home. Maybe his mother was here, and he could go find her.

His muscles ached loudly when he went to move. His legs felt like they'd been lit on fire, and his pectorals seemed fit to start a revolt. What had happened last night? He couldn't remember. His head was fuzzy and he felt a little sick.

He groaned, and rolled over to go back to sleep, but the backs of his fingers slid along someone's clothed spine. A startled shout ripped it's way out of his mouth, and he recoiled, hand flashing out, sparks jumping off his palm to dance along the sheets.

As if woken by the simple feeling of fire, the person sleeping across the bed slammed onto his back, waving his hands in a downward motion. The scent of singed cotton remained light on the air, but the fire was out before it had chance to properly catch.

Zuko sat up like a reanimated corpse rising from it's coffin. He was fully clothed. Somehow he'd managed to sleep in the stiffened fabric shoulder guard attached to his robes.

"Don't set me on fire!" he snapped.

Jet blinked at him. "What happened last night?" he asked.

Zuko's face softened instantly, as if the question had caught him off guard. "Azula made you preform," he said, and Jet instantly felt sicker. He pushed away, sliding back off the bed, and crouching beside it.

"She had you do the flaming pig-chicken dance, and climb to the top of the highest roof, and kiss a dog. I thought you'd collapse from the exhaustion, but you just kept going," he continued.

Jet took a moment to pour over what he'd just said. It didn't really make him feel any better knowing that there hadn't been a repeat of that episode as the sun was rising. She'd still made him. She'd still made him, and he didn't know how.

Zuko sighed, reaching up to press into the muscles of his own neck. The backs of his knuckles were dusted with soot. Ashmaker.

"The sun is rising," Zuko said, and Jet wasn't really sure how he knew that, but he said it with a final certainty that assured he did. "I need to go to the bathroom," he said quickly, snapping the blankets back off his lap, and sliding onto his feet. He was still wearing his shoes.

The door closed softly behind him, leaving Jet alone to realize the sun wasn't the only thing that was rising. Damn morning wood. Every single morning.

He didn't feel like touching himself. He didn't feel like doing much of anything. Honestly, he wished he'd never have to do anything again so he could feel as if maybe for once everything was in his power.

His fire roared inside him like a caged animal trying to claw its way out. He summoned a bit of it to his hands. Maybe he didn't have power over Zuko, and Azula could just take over his mind whenever she wanted, but he had power over this.

The fire quivered in his palms, reaching up as if it wanted to caress his face with little warm hands. Suddenly, the thought of bending with Buwei soon didn't bother him so much. He felt himself almost looking forward to it.

The flame danced over his fingers when he moved them, it jumped, and leapt between them. It was warm. It was alive. At once, it was one with him, and all its own. It was glorious and it was terrible but he needed it. It was beautiful, ravenous. He'd just feed it. He could feed it and feed it, and maybe then he'd feel whole for fucking once in his spirits damned life.

"Never thought I'd catch you doing that," Zuko said softly. Jet looked up and found him leaning against the jamb of the door. His face was blank but soft. It looked almost fond. His eyes were trained on the flame.

Jet squashed it, and the prince's face fell.

"I shouldn't have watched," he admitted then. "Breakfast is being brought. You need a damn bath," he added.

"Na! Run Jet a bath he stinks!" Zuko called back into the hallway. Jet felt like maybe he should be offended, but he wasn't. For what ever reason he wasn't. He didn't really feel anything.

This time he had enough faculties about him to tell the servants to fuck right off so he could wash himself. The water was warm, and without eight different people doing things to all different parts of his body at once, it was even nice. He'd never bathed this way before. Funnily enough, the forest hadn't had tubs, and even in Ba Sing Se he'd had no way to get a tub full of water into one of those tiny houses.

Hot water in a tub had been so far out of reach he hadn't even realized that there were people in the world who did it this way. It figured that hot water was easy enough in the Fire Nation though. What with all the firebenders.

If he focused on the water, he could make it bubble by heating it up. He wondered if that was how Katara felt when she water bended.

Spirits. Katara. She'd started all this. She'd knocked his head loose enough that the fire fell out. She'd brought back his parent's faces, and reminded him why he was chased away. He wanted to hate her for it, but he couldn't. She'd just been trying to help. If he could be forgiven for trying to help at the dam- he hated thinking about the dam- she could be forgiven for trying to help in his head.

They pulled him out of the bath before he really wanted to get out, but he didn't whine at them for it. Breakfast was ready by the time he got out into the main room, and Zuko was eating porridge with bits of meat in it.

"Is all Fire Nation food red, and spicy as shit?" he asked, sitting down across from the prince.

"It would be bland otherwise," Zuko said, and he was dead fucking serious. Fucking firebenders. They were simply unaware that there could ever be a middle ground. He was a firebender himself, his brain reminded him.

Jet was about to make a comment about it, but Zuko went gravely still, movements grinding to a halt before he froze. His eyes flicked up from his plate to Jet. "What?" he asked hesitantly, "Did the Dai Li do to you?"

Jet swallowed, eyes flicking to the scar wrapped around Zuko's face like a flesh eating parasite. "I'll tell you if you tell me," he said, and it was entirely unfair to ask that because Jet barely remembered. Just like Jet barely remembered what Azula made him do, or the time on the ship, or the time after Zuko dragged him off the floor after Aang died.

Zuko's face flushed, and he looked back down at his plate.

"I spoke out of turn in my father's war room," he said very quickly, and then he shut his mouth as if that would be the end of the discussion. Jet only had more questions. That didn't say shit about how he'd gotten the scar. Wait. Had that been the mistake Zuko mentioned? The terrible mistake. The horrid mistake that he seemed to regret with all he ever had.

He'd spoken out of turn?

That couldn't be right. No one would do that. That couldn't be right. Suddenly the idea that he could get killed for who he fucked didn't sound so far fetched. Usually it was easy to believe Zuko just lied and never stopped. It was easy because he was an ashmaker. An ashmaker's word was as good as the ash they made. But this was different. The evidence was staring him straight in the face, red and hardened like a shell where healthy skin should have been.

Jet swallowed.

Zuko was lying. He had to remember that all ashmakers did was lie. Zuko was lying. He couldn't feel sorry for that scum.

"They tied me to a chair and a man stood there with a light that went around," Jet said. "I don't really remember much. Just what Katara jogged."

Zuko looked terrified. "Azula says she's going to have them do that to me, so she can make me dance around too," he said. The horror was so real on the other boy's face it made Jet hate him because he didn't have to live it.

He didn't have to live that, but Jet did.

"She brought them with her," Zuko said, and his words weren't any quieter, but somehow he was whispering them.

Them? Who them? Who?

The Dai Li.

Azula had brought the Dai Li home like a bunch of puppies she'd found in a cardboard box. Somewhere in his bones he'd felt them near but he'd thought it was paranoia. Jet was going to be sick. Zuko must have seen it on his face too, as the prince moved to get up, hesitating half way out of his chair.

The manipulative thing to do would be to comfort Jet, but Zuko waffled.

The Dai Li were here. He wasn't safe. This was just as bad as Ba Sing Se. This was worse. Here Azula and Zuko ruled like fucked up children ruled doll houses. Jet sat down heavily on the couch, and stared at the floor between his feet.

Zuko remained suspended in indecision over the seat of his chair. Jet could feel the fire in him, curling in worry and confusion. The prince was such a traitorous little bastard. All of that was faked. It had to be faked. How did he fake that so well when he was such a terrible liar?

Zuko was the best liar. Zuko was so good he passed himself off as bad. It was so elaborate. What did these people want with him? He hadn't done anything bad enough to the Fire Nation to warrant this.

"Jet?" Zuko asked, and his voice was so tiny. So unsure. Jet pinned him with a hard glare.

"Don't," he hissed, and the prince sank obediently back down into his chair, looking bashful and ashamed as he returned to eating his food.

The fire was rushing under Jet's skin, spinning along with his blood so fast it felt like it would rip out. He held his breath a moment to starve it, and then took a few deep breaths. The panic cooled but it stayed in his gut.

When he looked up again, Zuko was watching him. There was a tense moment of silent eye contact, Jet peering at Zuko past the hand he'd shoved into his own hair, Zuko staring back. The curiosity was clear. Zuko wanted something, he just didn't know what.

Most likely to see Jet cry. Firebenders probably jacked off to Earth Kingdom tears. Jet glared at him.

"You should eat something," Zuko said then, mouth barely moving around the soft words. "We have training soon."

Jet didn't eat. He'd lived long enough half starved that it wouldn't be the end of the world and he hated the food here, and it was probably poisoned or drugged. Which would explain why they were all so crazy here.

Master Buwei taught him forms, and it was like climbing trees it was so natural. It made Jet giddy with some odd happiness he never thought he'd attain. He caught Zuko watching him out of the corner of his eye, but ignored it.

Master Buwei seemed very pleased. He told Jet to go over the Katas they'd learned before bed every night, and Jet almost felt inclined to follow the instructions. Fire was catching, and the minute he'd given his air, it had set him alight. He thought it'd be terrible to burn but it felt good.

He played with fire under tables in their lectures, much to Zuko's chagrin. The prince put his flames out more than once, and Jet still wasn't sure how he managed to control someone else's chi before they'd even let go of it.

He'd have to learn that trick. He'd have to. Where had Zuko picked up all those little ticks to his bending? Had Azula been telling the truth about Zhao teaching him between the sheets? He did things sometimes that Buwei hadn't even mentioned being possible, and it wasn't like how Azula simply defied bending logic by being too good, instead it was like Zuko had learned how to cheat.

Zuko's fire wasn't any stronger than Jet's. In fact, it felt weaker, more unsure of itself. When they shared, when Jet held Zuko's flame, it was like a blushing girl in his hands, trying to cover herself up before she lost too much of what she considered to be virtue.

No, what made Zuko good was plain knowledge and experience, not preternatural skill.

"Hey," Jet hissed as Earth Kingdom Strategy came to an end, the lecturer writing something in ridiculous scrawl Jet thought looked more like pictures than words on his demonstration pad. "At lunch you wanna show me how you bend with your swords?"

Zuko shot him a look out of the corner of his eye. It wasn't nearly so ghastly getting that from the healthy side, Jet decided. Zuko could use his scar as an intimidation factor surprisingly well, and seemed to be aware of that.

"Yeah," Zuko said softly after a moment of thought. "We'll go to the Lord and Lady's garden."

Jet wasn't sure which garden Zuko was talking about until they were back in the prince's room, picking up their swords.

"Do you wanna use the window, or should I move the dresser?" he asked, gesturing to where his sister had come in the day before.

The window was fine. Jet crawled through it after Zuko, and out onto the lawn. It was a beautiful little garden, much smaller than the one they trained in typically. A small lover's bench was situated by the stream that bisected the area, under the tree. Jet peered down at the coy fish swimming through carefully arranged water plants.

"The idea," Zuko started, "is to push the fire out the back of your knuckles like you're doing a punching form." He gave a short demonstration, taking a bending stance, and punching, sword held straight up, pointing at the sky. He didn't produce any fire, but Jet got the point anyway.

"I've been trying to figure out how to channel the flame down the blade, but I can't with the hilt guard in the way," he admitted. Jet almost felt an affection for that, but managed to stop himself. Zuko wasn't his friend. They'd never be friends. Maybe he could have been friends with Li, but Zuko was out of the question.

"Do you wanna practice some basic strikes, and blocks?" he asked. "We can take turns."

It was a simple routine. Zuko showed Jet how to use his swords in combination with a small bending trick to dissipate a fireball, and they spent their lunch brake drilling that until Jet's stomach made it's emptiness audible.

The prince insisted they sit down, and eat. They ended up, legs almost touching, sitting on the lover's bench with a platter of food on the ground in front of them. They ate quietly. Jet had to force himself until he wasn't full anymore.

"It's cool," Zuko said, when his bowl was empty. "No one's ever shown an interest in sparring with me like that."

"Like what?" Jet asked.

"With steel," Zuko explained.

He had said most firebenders saw weaponry as beneath them, and as far as Jet could tell it was true of earthbenders as well. You could always tell a soldier was a bender because benders never carried weapons. That had been why he was so surprised to find out Zuko could bend.

Though he shouldn't have been. The gold eyes were a firebender thing. There weren't many firebenders without them. Jet was as stealth about his bending as one could physically be.

"It's nice," Zuko said.

Jet wanted to slit his throat. Having Zuko point out that he enjoyed this was such a disrespect. Jet was just using him to learn what he could so that he could destroy the ground he stood on and restore the balance the Fire Nation had stolen from him. 

There was a sound behind the wall adjacent to Zuko's bedroom, and Jet looked over in time to see the door opening. Azula stepped out daintily.

"A lover's picnic?" she asked, strolling across the lawn towards the bench. Jet felt his fire itch under his skin.

"Hello Azula," Zuko said. "We were just leaving."

"Oh but I've only just arrived," she said happily. She stepped around Jet, to drape her arms around her brother's shoulders. Zuko held very still as if he were surrounded by hornet-buzzards. "Don't you want to spend time with your dear, baby sister?"

Zuko swallowed.

"I want to have a romantic picnic, Zuko," she mocked softly, tugging on the collar of the prince's shirt. "Why aren't you having a romantic picnic with me?"

"It's not a romantic picnic," Zuko said. "We're just eating outside."

"Eating outside, in the garden where you were conceived," Azula corrected. Jet suddenly felt very gross. So that was why they called it the Lord and Lady's garden. "It's so sentimental."

Jet put his bowl back down on the tray. He was done eating. He couldn't force any more of that damn ash food down his throat. He wished Zuko had continued to provide him with an Earth Kingdom substitute, but he seemed to have forgotten. Or maybe he just didn't care.

"Father's not in his rooms, and they're all cold now without a big, strong, bending man in them. You should come and warm me up," she teased. She was a firebender, couldn't she warm herself? 

"I'm busy, Azula," Zuko said softly.

"With your boyfriend?" she asked. "Zuzu, I'm your sister. I'm the best thing you'll ever get."

Zuko closed his eyes, as if trying to steel himself. "I have lessons in another ten minutes," he said.

"Send your dog-monkey to take notes," She said. Jet noticed that she was slowly sliding into her brother's lap, as if trying to pin him down and hold him hostage so he couldn't escape. Zuko remained deathly still.

"He doesn't know where the class is," Zuko protested.

Azula's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she caught the shells of Zuko's ears with her finger tips, yanking on them so she held his face as captive as the rest of him. "Send him to his room then," she said in a hard demanding voice.

There was a beat of silence, and then Zuko's eyes were cutting to him. "Jet, go to your room," he said quickly.

"Well unless he wants to help," Azula said, and panic spread across Zuko's face in an instant.

"Jet, go to your room now," he said, voice high and tight. It didn't come out as a demand, but rather a plea, and Jet hated being told what to do, but he got the feeling that he shouldn't take any other course of action considering the insanity of all the people involved in this interaction.

"See ya, then," he said, and crossed the lawn back to Zuko's room, slipping through the window as quickly as he could. He caught sight of her pinning him to the bench, but he didn't stay to watch.

Zuko didn't come back for hours. It was dark by the time that he knocked on Jet's door.

He stood, silhouetted by the hall light, and made an odd noise in his throat. His posture seemed constrained, unsure. "Do you hate me?" he asked, and his voice was as tight as his arms were at his sides.

Jet didn't understand the question. He stared at the prince's face, but it was blacked with shadow, offering no divination into what the fuck he could be thinking.

"Why?" Jet asked.

"Everyone hates me," Zuko said softly. He shook his head, "Can I stay here tonight?" he asked.

He'd stayed last night. Jet knew for certain now that Zuko wouldn't kill him in his sleep. They'd shared a bed twice now. Like Zuko was a Freedom Fighter. Like Zuko was a friend.

"Fine," he said, and the other boy stepped through the door quickly, shutting it behind him.

He didn't say anything as he rounded the bed, footsteps quick and silent, and sank down into it. He didn't take his clothes off, and he kept his back to Jet, lying as far away as possible. His fire thrummed warm, and delicate in the dark, lacking any confidence.


	7. Chapter 7

How many days had he been in the Fire Nation? Jet felt like he was loosing track. It hadn't been more than a week. Couldn't have been.

Zuko was sleeping across the bed from him, curled onto his side, the healthy side of his face pressed into the pillow, so that his scar was what showed. Even like this he was beautiful, and Jet hated him for it.

His hair fell across his face, making him look like a child. Jet felt the strange urge to push it away, but he restrained it. He didn't want to touch the ashmaker, he told himself.

The sun was rising, and Jet knew it with all the certainty that Zuko had yesterday. The other boy's eyes fluttered, and opened gently, the scarred one, struggling against itself to do so. Zuko's eyes were golden, and Jet wanted to hate it because those were fire eyes, but they were alive and they were as beautiful as he was.

The prince's face hardened a bit when he met Jet's eyes, but he didn't frown, and he didn't look unhappy. He simply looked guarded.

The sun was rising, and so was Jet. He could feel his dick contending with his sleep pants. Every damn morning. He refused to break eye contact with Zuko. Fire thrummed in his belly, horny and impatient for him to jack off. He hadn't in a while, but he didn't want to.

He could feel Zuko's fire too, seeping out of him loudly, and warming the bed.

"I need to go to the bathroom," the prince said quickly. Jet caught his wrist as he moved to get up.

"Is it a firebender thing?" he asked. Zuko looked startled, a bit worried. He chewed on his bottom lip nervously. Almost cute.

"What?" Zuko asked, playing dumb, but Jet remembered the erection that had been pressed into his thigh two mornings ago. Zuko had been harder than simple morning wood usually got a guy, and his dick had been fire hot. Jet woke up every morning hard as a rock weather or not he had to pee. As long as he remembered he'd woken up at dawn just long enough to jack it, and passed back out until he was good and ready to be awake.

He cast a glance down under the space between the covers and the bed in the direction of Zuko's crotch. When he met the other boy's eyes again, he was blushing.

"I- uh- yeah," he said.

Jet let go of his wrist, and watched him sit up.

"I'm- I'm gonna go to the bathroom," he said. Jet watched him get up and walk around the bed to the door. There was a tent in his pants. There had been a tent in his pants yesterday morning too, Jet realized. It just hadn't been noticed.

The door closed, and Jet felt his dick throb. It was too hot, and the skin felt uncomfortable. He didn't want to masturbate, he wasn't really in the mood, but his body was screaming at him for the change of routine, upset at not receiving release it had come to expect.

He ignored it, but that didn't stop him from thinking about Zuko tugging one out fervently. Arousal was stupid. I was a stupid thing. He felt gross. He had to put it down. He had to walk away from that morning. The same way he'd walked away from everything else.

He closed his eyes, and tried to ease it a little by turning Zuko back into Li. Li on that ferry, sitting on his knees between those barrels in the narrow passing between the interior and the railing where no one bothered coming so late at night. Li saying "I've never," against his lips, but knowing how to hide, knowing how to be quiet, knowing how to suck.

He hadn't been surprised really, finding out Zuko wasn't a virgin, but thinking about the other dicks Zuko sucked, made him remember what the Princess had said about Zhao. Jet almost lost last night's dinner. He'd been rubbing himself through his pants, and when his hand jerked back his dick didn't even bother protesting. His erection was gone.

He'd fucked the same mouth Admiral Zhao had.

That might not be true, he told himself, but the look of shame on Zuko's face had been so telling. At least the Prince had the decency to be ashamed.

Why would anyone ever do that anyway? Invite a monster into their bed?

There had been times when they didn't have supply routes to ambush, or money to spend, that Jet had sold his time to whoever wanted it. Never Fire Nation. That had been the rule. He'd been sure to enforce it when some of the other older kids joined him.

Thievery was lucrative, but dangerous and if they were a nuisance to the towns they protected they'd be sold to the Fire Nation army. Labor was cheap, and often dangerous. The best bet had been prostitution.

Bang for buck.

True it was still slightly dangerous work, but less dangerous most times than being crushed with construction materials. Just about as dangerous as it ever was to be naked and unarmed around a stranger.

Maybe it wasn’t all that inviting. Jet knew from experience there were a lot of ways someone could make it hard to say no. It probably wasn't true because Zuko was the Fire Prince, and fire had no fucking morals, but it made him feel better to think about it that way.

Fire had no morals, he thought, and then he thought about the flood. No wonder he hadn't seen it as wrong to kill all those people. He was Fire Nation too.

When this was all over, and the entire royal family lay dead at his feet, he would burn himself to ashes for being what he was. He just had to wait. There wasn't a single other person in his position. He had to do it. It had to be him.

Maybe with this he could redeem himself. He felt dirty, but when it was all over he would be wiped clean. He was weak, but he had power. The same power his captors used, he could use now too.

His muscles still ached from the night they'd eaten dinner with Azula, but he got up and paced through the forms he'd learned the day before. Today, he'd ask Zuko again if he wanted to train. He'd get good at using his new tool. He had to. How else would he be able to face off against the Firelord?

The harder Jet worked in class, the more Buwei praised him. Today, he offered cheerful words of encouragement as Zuko watched him with narrowed eyes. Jet wanted to laugh at him. The jealousy his more talented little sister had instilled in him was pretty far reaching.

At lunch, they met again in the Lord and Lady's garden and went through forms with their swords, blending bending with steel play. Zuko seemed fond of it. Azula came, and sat on the lover's bench to watch, mocking them both in turn.

She joined them for lunch. It was odd. Jet sat next to Zuko on the ground in front of her, and the prince handed him a bowl. Delicious Earth Kingdom smells wafted up out of it. Zuko made eye contact with him, and there was something meaningful there, but Jet didn't know him well enough to understand what exactly it was.

Had that look come from Longshot though, it would have meant "I noticed you haven't been eating much and so I got something I think you'll like". Zuko wasn't Longshot though, he told himself. No matter how much he missed Longshot, the other boy was still on the continent.

"I'm glad to see you've finally had the common sense to stop feeding your dog-monkey people food," Azula said as Jet dipped his fingers into the bowl.

Zuko frowned. Jet saw his lips twitch as words pushed up behind them, ready to burst free, but he didn't say anything. Jet took his lead. It felt strange being the follower. It had been so long since he'd taken orders and he'd never done well with that, but Zuko didn't exactly give orders so much as advise, and ask.

If he hadn't been an ashmaker who was son to the Firelord, and bedmate to Admiral Zhao, Jet might have actually been ready to take this boy's lead whenever. That thought disturbed him enough that he started thinking of ways to deliberately act out when Azula cut him off.

"God you're so boring ever since daddy burned your face off, Zuzu," Azula said, tapping the toe of her shoe against her brother's cheek. Zuko flinched.

"What?" Jet asked impulsively, hungry fir more information about the event despite all instincts to self preserve.

"Oh?" Azula perked up, turning her attention to him, and the minute he had it, Jet knew he didn't want it. He never wanted her to notice him again. It sent chills down his spine. Chills that felt like that terrible blue fire. "He hasn't told you? Typical," she said. "It's a great story. Do you want to tell it, Zuzu?"

Zuko didn't say anything. His face was grave and tight. Jet deeply regretted asking, but it was too late now.

"I'll tell it then," Azula announced. "It's the story of how my idiot brother got himself banished and disgraced before all of Caldera."

Jet looked between the two siblings. Azula's face was alight with glee. Zuko on the other hand had curled up as much as he could around his bowl of food, picking at it despondently. As if the act of eating could drive away his connection to reality and save him the horror of having to live through this moment.

"Three years ago, when I was twelve, and Dumb-dumb was thirteen, he asked Uncle Iroh if he could go into the war room, and my fuddyduddy old uncle said yes because he's an idiot. So Zuzu went, and he made an ass out of father by questioning one of father's generals. As such, he insulted father's honor and was challenged to duel an Agni Kai. But Dumb-dumb thought he was to duel the general he spoke against, so when he turned around and saw father he wet his pants like a virgin who was told to take a comodo-rhino as her husband. He was so disgraceful he actually cried right there. In front of everyone. And so father burned his left eye out as punishment." She finished with a giggle. She was looking at Zuko, and Jet followed her gaze to see that the prince's eyes were very far away.

"He got lucky. Father was lenient, and the eye healed. I've heard from the doctors that he sees just fine," she added, as if Zuko wasn't there, and scarring your own son was reasonable or getting away with that kind of scar was lucky.

"It should have been to the death," Azula said. Zuko flinched.

Jet felt cold. His food tasted alright for once, but his stomach didn't want it anyway. Zuko's face kept that look on it, and Jet knew that look too fucking well. He'd seen it on his kids in the forest, and on the refugees in Ba Sing Se. Combat shock. The only physical manifestation of the scars inside was that ghastly hundred mile stare.

His brain conjured images of Zuko's face melting away, and he gagged silently on his food before forcing it down his throat.

"You really should have been there," Azula said then. Her face looked wistful. "It's one of my happiest memories."

Zuko put his food down. That seemed intensely strange and wrong, and Jet realized he'd never seen either Zuko or Li refuse food without the promise of something better. Li had fully been intending to eat that rotten soup if he had to force himself. That was the kind of trait that came from the starved. People couldn't fake hunger like that.

Zuko had hunger. He put his food down.

That night when they'd sparred for the first time, he'd said he could still smell it burning. Jet could smell it too. He knew what it would smell like. Burning meat and hair all curling up on the side of Zuko's face. Fuck it was sick. It was sick.

The angle of it, Zuko had been looking up into the blast. His father must be huge. A huge man burning the face off a boy.

"Then daddy threw him out of the country, and told him he couldn't ever come back unless he captured the Avatar," she laughed. "It seemed impossible at the time. I thought he did it because he never wanted you back, but he really did have faith in you, Zuzu," she crooned, reaching out, and petting his hair. Zuko flinched again.

"Isn't that lecture in like two minutes?" Jet asked.

Azula looked affronted by him existing when she turned her attention away from her brother, like she'd forgotten he was there.

"Oh," Zuko said, recognizing the out when he saw it. "Yeah, it is. Sorry Azula, I have to go." He disentangled himself from her gently, and beat a hasty retreat, strides carefully slow as he crossed the garden. Jet followed him.

They slipped back through the window one after the other, swords in hand. By the time Jet was standing on the floor inside, Zuko was ruffling with his clothes, adjusting them like a thirteen year old boy who'd just gotten hugged by his friend's busty mom.

He was hard, but Jet was entirely unsure why. He seemed pretty embarrassed about it too if the color of his cheek was anything to go by. When their eyes met, Zuko's pupils were blown. Jet swallowed.

Li's pupils had been so wide when he was on his knees. So wide that the irises of his eyes looked like the faintly glowing corona of an eclipsed sun. Zuko was hot. Zuko was sexy and broken and his yawning pupils looked like they held some really fucked up secrets deep inside them.

Jet wanted to kiss him, and he was sick about it.

"Thanks," Zuko said quickly, as he snapped his belt back into place over his shirt.

"Don't mention it," Jet said, desperately trying to keep himself from staring at the prince's crotch. What the fuck did the Fire Nation do to their kids that Zuko was like this.

Jet remembered Li bringing his hand to that pale neck, and telling him to squeeze until he couldn't breathe as he jacked himself off. It had been fascinating-hot, but also deeply disturbing. Jet had never had a stranger ask him for anything like that. He hadn't even had a friend do it. Sure he'd heard that it was done, but fuck.

Li had seemed overly trusting. Now Jet got the feeling that Zuko either didn't care about his life, or had an extremely limited death-perception. Maybe both.

"I'm gonna take a piss," Zuko told him, lying as he excused himself from the room.

He was gonna go touch himself. Just like he had that morning. Jet remembered the feeling of the muscles in Li's throat fluttering under his hands frantically as the other boy started to come. He remembered the look on his face, the harsh, aborted sound he'd made when Jet let go, and orgasm crashed down like a wave. Zuko had whined softly when he'd spilled it all. He'd looked down at his dick, and whined.

Jet was gonna be haunted by that night for the rest of his life. Fuck Zuko for just getting up and moving on. Jet wondered how much truly anonymous sex the prince had had with people like him. Definitely enough that he was completely unphased so long as it wasn't brought up again.

They went to classes, and Jet's knuckles looked like they were going to be black and blue for all time by now, but that didn't stop the teachers from continuing to carry out their corporal punishment.

When they'd had their last lecture, Jet stopped Zuko in the hallway. "You wanna spar some more?" he asked awkwardly. Zuko's face lightened surprisingly. It was easy to tell by the muscle on him that he trained often, but Jet had never expected him to love it so much.

"Yeah," he said, "But let's pick somewhere else to do it." Jet agreed. He didn't want to be anywhere near Azula ever again. They dropped by Zuko's rooms to pick up their swords, and found their way back to that tree.

They went through some basic forms first, Zuko matched Jet's movements exactly like he'd been trained to do on the fly mimicry since he was a child. Jet supposed that would be the best way to learn a new fighting technique.

Doing things so in tandem felt strangely intimate. Zuko's fire stilled as they moved, and Jet felt it fit itself in along his. They went through the exercises cold once, and then hot a second time. Zuko stripped his shirt off when they'd finished. Together, they picked up their swords, and drilled the forms twice more. Once cold, once hot.

Zuko was sweating by the time they'd finished. He offered Jet a small smile as they turned and bowed to each other.

Unlike their first sparring session, which had been a sloppy spat, this had some structure to it. They went at it for a good while until they were both worn out tired. Then, they sat down heavy at the foot of the tree.

Zuko offered Jet a water skin, which he took eagerly. Water tasted like heaven. Zuko drank too when he handed it back, then took a few moments to catch his breath, staring at the gates in the palace wall.

"Was she telling the truth?" Jet asked before he could really stop himself.

Zuko made a strange, choking noise, and when Jet turned to look at him that expression was back on his face. The prince blinked slowly.

"Yeah," he said. "I don't like talking about it."

Jet got that. There had been plenty of kids he'd taken in with scars they didn't like to talk about. Many of those were burns. Jet could remember the fingerprint burns on Looki-Loo's thighs. There had been horrible memories behind those that no one had to ask about to know the truth of.

"Yeah," Jet said. "What happened after?" he asked.

Zuko looked genuinely surprised. Then, his brow creased. His eyes stayed far away but not quite as far.

"My father made me leave the Fire Nation the next day. I don't remember it," he said. "I have some memories from then, but not many. I don't know how much time I lost, but Uncle said that I was on fire one moment and made of ice the next. He said it got infected, and they could only do so much on the ship." He stopped, brushing his fingers under his left eye over the reddened skin. "That's why it looks so bad," he added.

"So you just woke up one day, and you were far away from home, and you didn't know why?" Jet asked.

"At first," Zuko admitted. "Uncle came and explained it. He said I was lucky to be alive. It was just like what my father said. Lucky to be born. I don't have any luck. If I was lucky I would be dead. I wouldn't exist."

Jet felt that resonate deep inside him. There had been more than one time in his life he'd shared that sentiment. He shared it right now. His mouth felt ashy, and dry. He reached for the water skin, and Zuko handed it to him.

The water didn't help.

He felt horrible. He felt the worst. Zuko may have lied to him, but no more than Jet lied to every fucking person he met. Zuko had just given him the wrong name. He hadn't lied about a single other thing except being a virgin, and they'd been such obvious lies.

Jet doubted that Zuko had ever gotten away with a lie in his life. If he had, Jet would be very impressed. When Zuko managed to keep himself from giving things away, his fire did it for him. He was the most open book in the world. The only book Jet knew how to read.

"What did you do?" Jet asked.

"What else could I do?" Zuko returned. He heaved a heavy sigh. "I was desperate to be home. I wanted things to go back to the way they were. I hunted the avatar. I wanted it so bad I could taste it. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of. Things that made my disgrace a fucking joke. Of all the things I've done, the thing I was punished for was trying to help,"

This was the most Jet had ever gotten Zuko to talk at once, he realized.

"How did you end up on that Ferry?" Jet asked.

"I spent three years at sea. Then my father started making things more difficult. Funding cuts. To teach me responsibility. I finally found the avatar, but I couldn't manage to catch him. He was just a child, and still he outsmarted me at every turn. I failed and I failed, and my father lost patience with me. Eventually, I stepped too far out of bounds, and he sent my sister to collect uncle and I to be brought home as prisoners. We ran. It was uncle's idea to go to Ba Sing Se. He said we could start over there."

The mask that Li had been suddenly seemed transparent, and insubstantial. It just fell away.

Jet stared at him. In profile like this, his face looked whole, and Jet could imagine what he'd looked like before. That face must have haunted Zuko every time he looked in the mirror. Just like Smellerbee's body tormented her, changing in ways she didn't want, making her seem more and more male the older she got.

Zuko's face was perfect in it's broken state but Zuko would never see it that way.

Jet fisted his fingers in the grass instead of letting himself touch the other boy. He wasn't smart. He was paranoid. Paranoia clouded things, and obscured the obvious. When Jet had looked at Li he'd seen the truth until he'd learned that boy was a bender and then the whole world had gone up in fire on the inside.

Firebenders couldn't all be the same. Behind those skull shaped masks there were people with actual lives. Some of them were bad people. Most of them were just acting under orders.

The realization made him feel very, very small. He was a terrible person. He'd known. It was something he was aware of, but he hadn't grasped the magnitude of how terrible he was until just then. He was bad, and there was no one to hate. There was no one really responsible. All those people he'd killed were a symptom not a cause. Their deaths had been as useless and empty as his own parents'. Only justified in the moment of survival. Not even strategic enough to make a difference.

There was no way to tell an innocent firebender from one with blood on his hands, a repentant firebender from a murderer who loved to torture people. But Earthbenders weren't all so great all the time either. The Dai Li had shown him that.

He cast a quick glance around to make sure he didn't see any of them hanging from walls, watching.

He felt like he'd been pulled out of the world, and forced to look back on it. Some hand pushing his head down to make him view it carefully, the voice it belonged to screaming, "People are individuals. Some are good and some are bad, but most are just fucking people!"

Zuko was just a person. He was just a person, and he was just like Jet. They were both sitting here, somewhere they didn't belong, trying to find where they fit into everything, who they were, how to be good when the only things they'd ever known were bad.

Jet loved his father. He'd loved his father, but if he thought about it, he could remember the man hitting him, making him hurt. Sometimes he'd bled. He wasn't sure when but at some point he must have intentionally forgotten that in order to keep himself going after all the disasters he'd lived through.

Revenge had been all he had for so long.

The fire inside Jet suddenly felt just as weak, and quiet as Zuko's. It quivered, a delicate and unsure thing trying to hide in the depths of his gut.

It made sense now why Zuko had been so desperate to believe Azula. Jet felt just like that desperate, lost boy he'd seen in that cave. He felt just like that.

Zuko was one of his. Zuko was a fighter. Azula was crazy, and his father was a monster, and Jet would take care of him the same way he'd taken care of Bee when she'd been so small and so scared she shook like a leaf in the ash.

He imagined Zuko's upturned face when he'd been on his knees on the ferry, but this time, he saw it burning. The thought that Zuko was burning on the outside the same way Jet was burning on the inside occurred to him again for the first time since he'd seen that steaming cup of tea after they stepped into the city.

They sat in silence for a long time, and Zuko's face was grave as he silently relived terrors Jet hadn't been there for, couldn't name. The moon hung waning in the sky, watching them try not to look at each other.

"Let's go to bed," Zuko said after a long, long time. Jet followed him. He wasn't surprised when Zuko came to his room again.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished reading through all of the chapters and this fic is not finished (kind of expected that) but I’m finishing that chapter at least and other than that I vaguely remember where I was going with it so it looks like it’s time for a rewatch.
> 
> Keep reading the tags pls. I’m updating them as new information about this AU comes to light (remember I wrote it 5 years ago) and I don’t want anyone biting off more than they can chew lmao.

The sun was rising and once again so was he. It had been too long now since he grabbed his routine wank, and he was sure he must have skipped it at some point in his life before, but the way his dick was yelling at him, it really seemed like Jet had been consistent about one thing in his life.

Thank the spirits, really, but why did it have to be this?

His cock ached. It was like all seven hells had crawled up inside it and taken up residence. He felt himself grimace as he reached for it. He was too hard, and over sensitive. His fingers snaking under his sleeping pants felt almost like too much.

He swore lightly, kicking the pants down his legs.

It had been too damn long. He didn't waste time. Still, he wasn't particularly in the mood, so he just wanted to get it over with. He didn't even bother with a fantasy, just focused on what he was doing. He got the feeling that if he let his mind wander it would end terribly.

He groaned, and there was a sudden gasp beside him.

Zuko. Shit. He forgot about Zuko. He was jacking off in the same bed as the crown prince. For some reason that seemed suddenly very sacrilegious. He vaguely remembered someone saying something about the royal family being descended from gods as he glanced over at the other boy.

Looking into Zuko's wide, golden eyes, it wasn't exactly hard to believe. He and his sister had this strange perfection to their features. Too pretty.

Zuko's face looked open, and shocked. Jet almost felt embarrassed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd let himself be embarrassed but he'd had a good streak going avoiding that damn emotion. Zuko was blushing, healthy cheek pinked.

They held eye contact. Jet swallowed heavily.

"I'm," Zuko said tentatively. "Gonna go to the bathroom."

Jet felt himself throb in his hand. Zuko didn't make a move to get up. They held eye contact. Fuck he was pretty, and fuck if Jet was going to be embarrassed by someone as stupid and pomped up as the fucking Fire Prince.

He didn't break eye contact, but he kept going. He saw the prince's eyes widen a bit. The other boy's eyes flicked down to Jet's mouth and back up and Jet knew that look because it'd been the look Li gave him right before they kissed that night on the ferry.

That was hot. Fuck he was hot. Did Zuko even know how fucking hot he was?

The prince still didn't make any move to leave. He stayed there, frozen by eye contact, as Jet's hand sped up a little more.

It'd been days since he jacked off, Jet wasn't going to last. Especially not watching Zuko lick his lips, or worry at them with his teeth. Jet could remember how those lips felt around him, how fucking warm Zuko had been.

Zuko's mouth opened, and Jet saw a faint crackle of fire in the back of his throat. He came, and the prince gasped audibly, sparks rocketing around on his tongue. Jet wanted to kiss him so bad. Instead, he let himself get swept away by the orgasm.

It was a good one. Not great, not mind shattering, but it left his toes feeling warm. He looked back at Zuko. The other boy looked unsure, and concerned. He swallowed. Jet gave him a small chuckle, and that blush deepened a bit more.

The prince was cute. No wonder his sister tortured him so often. He was cute when he was unsure and questioning. His mouth worked its way open again.

"I'm," he started again. "Gonna go to the bathroom."

Jet smiled at him, and Zuko gave him a wide eyed nod as he got up. Jet watched the way the prince's cock hung heavy and full underneath his pants as he rounded the bed to the door. He felt his own dick twitch again, and glared at it as Zuko left the room.

He was going to go touch himself. It was obvious. Zuko did this every morning they shared a bed. Jet really should have thought to give the same courtesy, but by the time it occurred, he'd already been in the middle of it.

He tried not to think about it. If he did, he'd just get himself worked up again, and while it felt good, he just wasn't interested. It was a strange feeling. He couldn't remember a time in his life other than this where he'd gotten this strange reluctant feeling thinking about sex.

Just another thing the Fire Nation had taken from him.

That thought made him bitter, so he rolled over and closed his eyes again. Sleep took him quick, but Zuko didn't take long getting himself off. He was back before Jet's brain could bother to start dreaming.

"Get up," the prince said. "We've got breakfast."

"What? No good morning kiss?" Jet joked. Zuko blushed again, turning his head so that his scar showed. He did that when he didn't want to be read, but it honestly didn't help much. Jet could still see straight through him. "I'm gettin' up," he groused, tugging his pants back up his legs, and tying them before he threw the covers back.

Zuko's eyes lingered on his lap as he swung his legs off the bed.

He'd said he spent three years at sea. No wonder the prince was so cock hungry. Sailors did have a reputation after all. Jet had heard that there were female officers in the Fire Army, but he had yet to see a single woman aboard any ship. Someone had told him once that the Fire Nation in particular still held to the outdated notion that women aboard a ship brought calamity from the jealous ocean.

Jet held back the urge to ask the prince if he liked what he saw.

"I got you some Earth Kingdom options," Zuko said as he lead the way out of the room. "You'd be amazed how hard it is to get our chefs to concede to making Earth Kingdom food. I've been fighting them about it since you got here."

Jet tried not to feel touched, reminding himself that common decency was not an extraordinary trait.

Zuko gave a heavy sigh as he sat down at the table, pulling it closer to him. The wheels squeaked. The prince took time pointing out Earth Kingdom dishes, naming ingredients in the same show that servant girl had given Jet his first breakfast here.

It was much more enjoyable coming from Zuko. The prince cut things up as he spoke, serving a few portions out onto a plate, and handing them to Jet.

The food was good. Still a bit on the spicy side, but good. He remembered sitting on the Ferry after they'd handed out all that food, watching Li pull a packet of spicy sauce he nicked out of his waist band. He'd used all of it, and still told his old uncle that it was not spicy enough. Jet had thought it was cute.

When they'd kissed, Li had tasted like sriracha.

Jet kind of wanted to kiss him now, but they both had their mouths full.

"My father has called for an audience today," Zuko said, ruffling through a few papers he found under his plate. "We're giving up our lunch time sparring for it, but I guess it can't be helped. Jet frowned, and Zuko gave him a look that he assumed was an approximation of sympathetic.

It was adorable how hard he tried to be a normal person.

"Let me see that," Jet said, snatching the parchment out of the prince's hands. The paper was soft and cotton spun. "Looks like a bunch of squiggly lines to me," he announced, giving the page a curosy glance. He then did his best to crinkle it into a ball, throwing it over his shoulder. "It's useless. I don't think the Fire Lord has anything intelligible to say. We should go on with practice today."

Zuko gave him a baffled look that was somewhere between scandalized and amused. "That's treason," he said.

"Everything's treason," Jet told him.

Zuko tried to look stern, but his lips remained slightly quirked at the edges, attemtping against his will to smile. "We're going," he said. "And that's final." Jet groaned. "And no more of this dismissing the Fire Lord. I don't want to have to sweep up your ashes when you're ritually immolated for speaking against the crowd."

"Whatever you say, Highness," Jet joked. The word fit into place though with a soft sighing sound that said "welcome to the Freedom Fighters." Jet was never calling him Zuko again. Zuko was a silly name. So was Li for that matter.

If Smellerbee and Longshot had been there, Jet wouldn't have even had to announce the name change. They simply would have known. "This is Highness. He's a Freedom Fighter now". And he was. Likely, Zuko wouldn't know it for a good long while, but he hadn't successfully turned the offer down.

Buwei praised his enthusiasm in class, and Jet was kind of starting to like morning training. Zuko's jealous looks when he learned a new move too quickly made his heart soar a little bit. He teased the prince about it during their lectures. In music, he managed to make Zuko blush a deep red, making his cheeks look like war balloons as he played the tsungi horn.

Before Jet knew it, they had broken for lunch, and Zuko was leading him down halls he'd never taken before. The palace was huge. The palace was massive. Jet had no idea how Zuko managed to find his way around.

They stopped in front of a set of large doors that looked much too big for anyone to feasibly close. Jet doubted they had been for years. Zuko took a deep breath before walking through them.

This was the throne room. Jet knew that instantly. It was huge, fit to hold huge parties of people looking for hand outs. He'd never expected to enter this world. He'd never expected to see rooms like this. The fire spit and crackled angrily, echoes of it bouncing around the open space. Jet felt instantly small. The Fire Lord's fire was overwhelming. He could barely feel his own beneath it, barely make out Zuko's fluttering more fearfully than ever.

"It has been too long, father," Zuko said, bowing. Jet watched him do so, then the prince's hand shot out, snapped around his wrist and pulled him into a bow too. Jet only just remembered to hold his hands in the proper position.

"I saw you two days ago, Zuko. Now sit," the Fire Lord said. Jet could see the outline of the man past the wall of flames, but details were hard to discern. Jet watched him stand, and step through the flames like they were a curtain of hanging beads that had suddenly decided to defy the laws of nature and hang upward.

"From what I'd heard about your pet, I expected it to be less civilized, though I suppose you still haven't properly taught it to bow," the Fire Lord said. Jet caught onto the man's face, and stared up at it from where he knelt on the floor.

Zuko looked like his father. The family resemblance was there. They had the same hair, and eyes, and the line of Zuko's jaw was the line of his fathers, but they were nothing alike. That was where the similarities ended.

Jet could feel his fire. It was night to Zuko's day.

"I've heard you've been teaching the peasant how to firebend," Ozai said, walking in slow circles around the both of them.

"Yes," Zuko said.

"You're such a virtuous boy," Ozai praised. "Killing the Avatar, and spreading the greatness of our nation onto even the most common riff raff."

Jet started, when Ozai said "killing the avatar". Azula had done that. He'd watched.

He met Zuko's eyes, and they were furtive. "Don't talk," they said. "Don't say anything. Just accept everything he says and don't question." Jet felt inclined to listen. He'd never felt something so ever present and dominating as the Fire Lords flame.

He swallowed. There were beads of sweat collecting at his hair line, and Jet desperately wished that he wasn't forced to wear the damn fake topknot on his head.

"I knew my hopes for you would be filled," Ozai said, laying a hand on the back of Zuko's neck. The prince flinched, and Jet's fingers itched for their swords.

He wanted to kill. He wanted to kill this man. He wanted to kill him. He would kill him. He would fuck the Fire Lord's skull. He would- Zuko shot him a look. Jet swallowed hard. Later. He would kill the Fire Lord later.

"You've been home for a week," Ozai said. "And already you continue to do you nation proud. Look at this beast. He almost looks human. You've picked him good clothes," the Firelord stopped as if thinking a moment, Jet felt the man's eyes on the back of his head. "A dirt grubber will always be a dirt grubber though."

There was a pause. "Why not have a demonstration. Show us what tricks you've taught your animal."

"Certainly, father," Zuko said. When he turned to Jet and caught his eyes, the look on his face was fierce. "Would you like a solo demonstration, or a mock duel?"

"A mock duel sounds nice. Perhaps you can pretend it's an _Agni Kai_," The Fire Lord said, stepping back through the flame and seating himself once more behind it. Jet saw Zuko flinch as if it had happened in slow motion.

"Come, Jet," Zuko said.

Jet swallowed nerves, and straightened to his feet as Zuko did. They bowed to one another, turned, walked a few paces, as Buwei had instructed, and faced each other once more, dropping into stance.

Zuko threw the first flame. Jet caught it, and lobbed it back. He heard the Fire Lord make an approving sound, as Zuko dissipated it, and kicked high. Jet hadn't learned many kicking forms, so it was a bit of a dirty trick but they were both dirty fighters, and if he knew how to make fire, he could make it from anywhere.

He wished he had his swords. He itched for his swords. Maybe, he could use fire instead, but if wouldn't be the same. Zuko summoned little flame daggers into his palm, and Jet copied the motion. Buwei hadn't taught them this either.

It was a good fight. Jet learned more from it then he felt he did drilling basics over and over. Zuko beat him, but it wasn't a disgraceful loss, even if it was at the feet of Jet's greatest enemy.

"Good fight," the Fire Lord told them, when Zuko stepped off Jet's chest, and let him up. The prince did not offer a hand, instead facing his father formally. "Good fight," he repeated. "Proof that a bird-monkey does as it sees."

Humiliation bloomed angrily in Jet's chest.

"Your bending has improved, my son."

"It's been three years since I demonstrated for you, father," Zuko said. Jet saw that he addressed the floor instead of attempting to look the man in the eye. The image of Zuko's face melting away resurfaced in his mind, and the smell of burning flesh his mind conjured up made him almost gag.

"You've grown well. The both of you look like honest Fire Nation boys, covered in burns and bruises. You've been training hard, and I commend it. Your sister did tell me that you met in the gardens to spar during your lunch break, and before dinner as well. It fills me with pride to see you finally taking yourself seriously."

"I have done my best, father," Zuko assured.

"And your best has been noted," Ozai said. "You are dismissed. I would like to see you in another week's time, that you may show me how your pet is progressing."

They beat a hasty retreat, stopping down the hallway so that Zuko could fuss over his own clothes.

"I thought he'd kill you for sure," the Prince said. "I was certain I'd have to at least take you to a healer."

"I'm fine," Jet told him, staring back at those huge doors. He'd kill that man. He'd kill that man. He would.

"Oh, Zuzu!" Azula. The last person Jet wanted to see. Her entourage was with her. She flitted into her brother's personal space almost menacingly. "We were just about to have a little party in celebration of your brilliant battle strategy. You are of course, the guest of honor. You should come. I'll even let you bring you little dirt pet," she said.

"We were just heading to lunch," Zuko said. "And I have more lectures afterward.

"Mai misses, you Zuzu," Azula argued. "You've been spending all your time with that boy of yours. Shouldn't you lavish the women in your life with more attention?"

Zuko blushed, looking at Mai. "I-yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm sorry."

"Good," Azula tittered.

She chattered as they walked, talking about glory in battle, and Earth Kingdom surrender. Jet hated her. He wanted to burn her, but Zuko was always in the way. It was like he shielded his little sister with his body. Jet almost thought it was completely intentional.

"Hi," Ty Lee said, giving him a little wave.

"Hi," he returned. She smiled widely at him.

"You wanna see what I can do?" she asked.

Jet paused, watching her as they walked. "Um," he said.

She drew up on her tip toes. "Great!" And before Jet really understood what she was doing, she'd flipped herself over and started walking on her index fingers.

"Woah," Jet said dumbly. Mai heaved a great sigh, and began chastising the girl for unseemly behavior but it was honestly impressive. When she was done with her trick she brought her feet down in front of her, and flipped all the way over in order to right herself.

"Fine," she said. "I just thought he'd like it."

"All boys like it. That's why they're always trying to sleep with you," Mai snipped. She sounded slightly accusatory.

Zuko made an odd sound as Azula gave a bark of laughter. "The peasant isn't going to be making any move on Ty Lee, Mai," she said. "Zuzu has a better grip on his pet than that."

Jet hated her.

"Right, Zuzu?" she asked. "You're not going to let him hump our legs, are you?"

"He wouldn't do that anyway," Zuko said.

"Is it just boys for him then?" The Princess asked. And no. No it wasn't just boys.

"I-" Zuko said, looking at Jet. "Don't know."

Jet shook his head. "Nah," he said. Zuko's face was turning pink.

"Then you have to save us, Zuko!" Azula cried, fake fear and damseldom played to the nines. "What if he rapes your fair maidens in the night?"

Zuko made an exasperated sound. "Spirits, Azula, he's not-"

"No!" Azula shrieked. "He looked at me! Now I have syphilis!"

"I'm gonna-" Jet started but before he could go anywhere intelligent with the thought, his anger from the confrontation with Ozai had him reaching for the princess, but Zuko caught him with a palm on the rise of his clavicles just beneath his throat.

"If the two of you cannot be civil then we will not have dinner, and you will go to bed hungry," he hissed at Jet. "Azula stop antagonizing him."

"Oh but it's fun," she whined.

"Stop."

Azula sulked for a moment, but it was a very short one. Before Jet had time to catch up, she'd popped back up with a near manic smile, and was leading the way again.

"I got you cakes. The Avatar's dead. You're back home. You gave father a brilliant idea at the strategy meeting a few days ago. Things are going so well for you, brother. Perhaps you should propose to Mai now before your luck runs out," she said.

Jet saw Zuko blush as he cast another glance at Mai. The kid had it bad. Really bad. It was sort of amazing to watch. It also made Jet uncomfortable. He couldn't quite tell why though.

They gathered in a sitting room, the royalty taking up and lounging on the couches beside one another. There were cakes and sweets. Jet watched the tray warily as it was passed around.

"These ones are spicy," Ty Lee told him helpfully. "Those are pretty mild though, and I don't think anyone's ever made almond jelly with peppers before."

"Thanks," he said, picking from the tray based on her suggestions. Mai, Zuko, and Azula had gotten themselves wrapped up in another conversation Jet didn't understand.

"So where are you from?" the girl asked. Jet blinked at her. It had been so long since anyone asked him something like that.

"Um," he started. "I don't remember." He didn't. He remembered the streets he'd played in, the house where he lived, he remembered the people. The name of the town was as gone as it was though. Blowing away in the wind as ashes.

"You don't remember?" she asked.

"I was really young when my village was burned down," he said.

Horror took over her face, soft and mostly hidden, but he saw it. "I'm sorry," she said, almost as if she felt personally responsible for the burning of his home. She was just like Zuko for a moment, the guilt of everything sitting on her shoulders, aware behind the mask of happy ignorance. "I saw a lot of burned villages while we were in the Earth Kingdom," she admitted.

It sounded a lot like Zuko had when Jet had explained the truth about Yu Dao. The Fire Nation had been spreading those lies since the beginning of the war when the city of Yu fell. For a hundred years a whole populace had believed that this war was fair, and just, and the right thing.

Jet took a bite of the almond jelly Ty Lee had pointed out. It was sweet, and the texture was spectacular, a bit cool as it squished against his teeth.

She perked right back up, leaving the topic behind with a small, but furtive glance at Azula. It was so bad, she feared acknowledging the truth in the Princess's presence.

"So what did you do in the Earth Kingdom?" she asked.

"Led a rebellion mostly," he admitted. Her face went pale, but her eyes had a glint of curiosity in them. He offered her a small smile, and she returned it full force.

"Maybe your past is better not mentioned," she said then, and she was more right than she could possibly know. He forced his smile a little wider and tried not to think about how angry he was. How much he wanted to kill Azula and her evil father. "I used to work in a circus," Ty Lee continued.

"Really?" Jet asked.

"Really," she assured. Were all fire people this interesting, he wondered. "I was a contortionist, and an acrobat," she said. "People used to come from all over the Fire Nation to see me!"

"That sounds like the life," Jet told her. The smile she gave him was so bright. She reminded him of Smellerbee then, the way her teeth all showed, and her mouth hung slightly open.

"You couldn't imagine," she told him. "It was so wonderful. My aura was the pinkest it's ever been."

Aura. She would have been adorable if she wasn’t who she was. Sort of infantile and ditzy. Focusing on how innocuous she was calmed him a bit. "Why'd you leave?" he asked.

"Oh," she said, sobering a bit. "Well Azula asked me to come back, and she's always been my true calling." A lie. Jet shot the princess a glance, wondering what she did to blackmail Ty Lee away from her life.

Azula was a treacherous snake. He watched angrily as she pressed a kiss to her brother's healthy cheek. Zuko was blushing again. It was like he spent all his life doing nothing but blushing.

"Being back in the palace has been lovely," Ty Lee continued, still much more subdued. "I've spent so much time with my old friends, and I missed them so much." He didn't doubt that last line, but most of the rest seemed like the flimsiest truth he'd ever heard. "Do you like it here?" she asked.

He made a face. "Not much," he admitted. What he saw in her face was nothing less than total understanding. Ty Lee was pretty alright, he decided. For an ashmaker that was. He still wasn't sure about trusting these people. He doubted he ever would be.

"How did you end up here anyway?" she asked then.

Jet frowned, thinking about it. He still didn't know why, and how was complicated. "I met Zuko on the ferry to Ba Sing Se," he said. She watched him with interest. "We sort of made friends when I conned him into helping me steal some food for the other refugees."

She gave him another smile. "That sounds exciting," she said. "I wish we did things like that more often. Sneaking around. Cool."

Jet had the feeling some sort of potential lay locked in there. Perhaps another Freedom Fighter in the making. 

"And you're a firebender?" she asked.

"Yeah," he admitted, and it was a weird thing to admit. "I didn't know though," he added.

"How do you not know?" she asked.

He gave her a shrug, and the curiosity in her eyes was back. There was something dangerous about this girl. Not something he felt the need to worry about, but he could smell the danger on her. "I'm a little fucked up," he told her.

She nodded.

"Will you stay with us tonight?" she asked suddenly.

"What?" he returned.

"Will you stay with us?" she repeated.

"I guess," he said. Her eyes lit up again.

"Good," she said. "I like you. We should talk sometime. You could tell me stories."

"Okay," he told her. Her smile was infectious. 

“The real treats will come out soon." She was right. Soon there was wine. Zuko poured it into a cup while telling his sister that if the magistrate of Panyu didn't turn in his taxes soon he would be thrown in jail because he "just didn't have the clout anymore."

Then the Pronce paused to take a sip. "That's good," he said, handing it to his sister.

"Of course it's good," she said, taking a sip herself. "This is a celebration after all." She passed the cup on to Mai.

Mai took a swallow, and passed it to Ty Lee.

"What is that?" Jet asked.

"Blue lotus wine," she said happily. "It'll let you touch the spirits."

Jet considered the cup for a moment before drinking it. Azula reached out for it, and he handed it back to her.

"They didn't have any of that in the Earth Kingdom," Zuko said, packing a pipe.

"Well what do you expect?" Azula took another sip of the cup, and offered it to Zuko. "Dirt grubbers don't know their intoxicants."

Zuko took a sip without bothering to take it from her, and she was quite accommodating, tipping the cup so he didn't have to stop his busy hands. They almost looked like normal siblings for a moment. Azula handed the cup back off to Mai, and it made it's round again as Zuko lit the pipe and threw it into circulation. Jet recognized the cannabis instantly by scent alone. This one he knew well.

The cup was filled again after it's third rotation. Azula was smiling widely by that point, and even Zuko looked less pissed than usual.

"Tell us about life at sea," she demanded, pulling on her brother's arm.

Zuko pulled an odd smile that Jet had never seen before, one that spoke of being on the way to tipsy. "It's boring," he said, taking another hit as the pipe got back to him. He pulled back and frowned at it, discovering much to his obvious chagrin that bowl was now filled with nothing but ash.

"How so?" Azula asked.

"We were at sea," Ty Lee threw in. "I agree that it's boring."

"Well there's no where to go, and if you look off there's the ocean and not much else," Zuko explained as if the girl hadn't spoken.

"We were only at sea for a week each time. Zuzu was out for three years. He must have found some way to entertain himself," Azula reasoned.

"Holing up in my room and jacking off more often than not," Zuko said. Jet almost saw the jelly he'd been eating come out of his nose.

Azula gasped, and Mai slapped his arm lightly with a tight, reprimanding, "Zuko!" Jet felt the laugh tear out of him, full bodied, and loud. The group turned to him.

"Pretty much how you spent your time on the ferry too," Jet said. He watched Zuko's face go red.

He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it as if he thought better. "Maybe you should wait for another day to call me out for being a wanker," he replied instead, and Jet remembered looking the prince dead in the eyes as he came. His dick twitched.

Instead of conceding, and giving the prince his win, Jet leered at him over Ty Lee and Mai's heads. "At least I'm proud of myself, Highness," he said.

"Oh, fuck off," Zuko told him.

"Having trouble disciplining your pet, Zuzu?" the Princess asked. "I can help if you want."

"No thank you," Zuko said. He'd packed the pipe again, and was handing it down to Mai.

"But we could do it together," she offered. "Brother sister bonding."

"We're already bonded," Zuko told her.

"Better bonding," Azula said. Jet couldn't see the Princess well, obscured from vision as she was by the prince, but she was doing something, Zuko's scarred eye was closed, and he looked a little fed up.

"You should put your plate down," Ty Lee told him, taking the dish. He glared at her, ready to tell her that these were his sweets and she could get her own when she slid it onto the table behind the couch. He wanted to ask why. He moved to. The sweets were good, and he was pretty intoxicated. Mostly it was that wine. He hadn't had nearly enough cannabis for this.

Ty Lee was in his lap before he could say anything though. He shot a look toward Zuko as her arms wrapped around his neck. The Prince had pushed the Princess down into the cushions, all Jet could see of her was a single shin, pressed up against her brother's side.

"What?" he asked Ty Lee.

She offered him a reassuring smile, and kissed him. It felt nice he realized. Touching anything at all felt nice. It was like his skin had been rubbed raw a day before, and now it was just open to feeling everything. She was warm, not as warm as Zuko, but warm.

Jet wrapped his arms around her waist, and dragged her down against him. He heard someone leaving the room, and when he looked up, all the servants who'd been attending were gone. Ty Lee moved on her own without his guidance, hips rolling like little waves against his.

"Share,' he heard Mai demand, and when he looked over to catch another glimpse of what Zuko was doing, he was kissing the girl. The Princess’ hand on her brother's topknot, pulling just slightly.

Ty Lee was taking her top off, and by the spirits she had great tits. Jet hadn't been thinking about it, but wow. Wow, he should think about tits more often.

"Look how well your pet plays," he heard Azula say as he pulled Ty Lee forward to put his mouth on her. Her hands were in his hair before he'd even realized it was down, and thank fuck it was down. "Did you train him to do that?"

"No," Zuko grunted.

"Picked for prowess then," Azula teased. Zuko made an odd sound. 

Rich people wore a lot of clothes. Jet wasn't fond, he found, fumbling with his own belt, and the ties of his shirt. Ty Lee knew the fastenings well though, and made quick work of them, taking over. Her fingers were nimble, he realized. Very nimble. 

He hadn't even been thinking of this girl sexually two minutes ago, and here he was, ready to fuck her into Sunday. What had been in that wine?

Azula was behind the girl then, arms wrapping around her like they were playing that game where one person put their hands behind their back and the other picked things up for them. He flinched, as the princess reached down, and yanked his pants open.

Her hands were freezing on his cock, and it almost burned how cold they were. "Let's see how well you chose," she said, holding him still to guide him in. The transition from cold to warm as Ty Lee replaced Azula's hand made his thoughts run short. 

He slammed the girl down onto him hard, trying to chase the icy feeling of Azula's hands away. He buried his face in the girl's neck as he began thrusting. She was warm, and everything felt good. There was another hand in his hair, this one warmer.

"Take your time," Zuko said, hot breath slamming up against Jet's ear. He wanted to kiss him. The prince would taste so good. Just like fire, and Jet had the ability to appreciate that now instead of cower before it. The other boy's hand held him still though, locking his head in place so he could only look at Ty Lee.

"Get her all the way off," Zuko instructed. His voice was rough. It sounded like heaven.

Jet slowed, angling his hips, sliding a hand down her stomach and under the waist band of her skirt so he could thumb at her clitoris. She moaned, but what Jet was focused on was Zuko hissing "good" in his ear. He wanted Zuko to say that again. Fuck it sounded amazing.

He reached up, and palmed at one of Ty Lee's breasts with his free hand, rolling his fingers lightly around a nipple. He'd done this a thousand times, it felt like. This was usually how sex played out. Wine first, and then a warm body later. One he didn't know a story for. One that left in the morning.

She sounded good. She sounded good. 

"Harder," Zuko hissed in his ear, and it didn't take any more than that for Jet to listen. He'd probably only had about a cup of that wine, but he was pretty far gone. He chanced a look at the other boy, and found him leaned into the couch back heavily, knees spread wide around that girlfriend of his as she sucked his cock.

The prince had his other hand on the side of her pretty face, and his good eye was barely open, chest heaving with his labored breathing.

Jet was gonna cum. He tore his eyes away, and focused on getting Ty Lee off first. He'd lost track of Azula, and he didn't even care. The girl in his lap was shuddering, almost as close as he was. He tightened the muscles in his stomach, hoping it would help him last. Zuko was moaning against his ear, and it was too much. 

She came, body seizing up around him as she did. He managed to hold for a few more thrusts, but then Zuko was humming "good boy" up against his ear. He followed with a small shout, vision giving out for a split second before the world snapped back. 

Ty Lee was above him, still rocking her hips gently into his, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted. She was a beautiful girl. She looked at him after a couple of seconds had passed, and smiled that infectious smile of hers.

"How's my brother's taste?" Azula asked. 

"Good," Mai said. Jet was focused on the fact that Zuko's hand was still in his hair, and the prince was muttering against his ear, "I'm close."

He turned his head, and locked lips with the prince, shoving his tongue into the other boy's throat. The hand in his hair tightened, and Zuko moaned into his mouth. Jet hadn't gotten him to moan on the ferry. It would have gotten them caught. Still, he'd wanted to hear that so bad for so long.Years it felt like.

He pulled back to watch the other boy tumble over the edge, mismatched eyes, screwing shut as his wet mouth fell open. He came with a long, drawn out, and strangled, "fuck."

Zuko was the hottest thing on the planet, and he didn't even realize it, and that pissed Jet off.

Azula was behind Mai, feeling the girl's sides through her layered clothing. "Does my brother taste better after his dick's been in peasant?" she asked. She locked eyes with Zuko as she reached up his girlfriend's skirt. "Does it taste like dirt now? Does he get off harder while he's kissing a boy? Do you like it?"

Mai made a soft, pleasurable sound. Zuko was watching with rapt attention, eyes a bit too wide. 

"Do you like it?" Azula demanded. Mai answered with another tiny moan, shuddering, clinging to Zuko's thighs, and burying her face in his lap as she came.

Azula sat back on her heals, and licked her fingers clean, keeping eye contact with her brother.

"Fuck," the prince said, voice still tight. He was half hard again.

"They're good to watch, huh?" Ty Lee asked. And no. This was wholly fucked up. Jet wasn't really sure why he was reacting, but there was something deeply disturbing about the whole situation. Inappropriate. This was highly inappropriate. Jet had never been a stickler for appropriate before, but this was just so far from it. 

Azula climbed back onto her feet, undoing her belt, kicking off her boots. She shucked her pants whole, and threw them behind her like she never could have cared. She toed Mai out of the way before crawling into her brother's lap the way Ty Lee had crawled into Jet’s.

"Put it to use," she told him. He made a strangled sound.

Jet watched, half in horror, half in arousal. He didn't know what to do, how to tear his eyes away. Azula threw her head back as she rode, moaning loudly. She sounded different now than she had through the wall. This was genuine. Jet felt disgust twist in his gut.

Out of all the fucked up things he'd expected from the Fire Nation, incest had been pretty low on the list. She arched back, supporting herself with a hand on her brother's knee as she came. Zuko made a soft noise against her shoulder before going limp.

She held him close, taking his topknot down, and running her hands through his short hair. "Good," she crooned. "Good."

Zuko said something, but it was too small to catch. The princess smiled. It was the nicest any of her smiles had ever been but she still looked vicious. The expression dropped almost as soon as it had come, and she pulled back.

"Let go of me Dumb-dumb," she said harshly.

Zuko did with a soft groan of complaint. The princess scrambled sideways out of his lap, curling contentedly against the pillows. "Good," she said, kicking her brother in the thigh. Zuko shot her a heated look. It made Mai give a single, soft laugh. 

"You're still hard, baby," Ty Lee crooned, running her hand through his hair, pulling it away from his forehead. "Do you wanna go again?" she asked.

Yeah. He did. But no. No he didn't. This was so far beyond acceptable. She felt good though. Warm and good. And she was moving already all on her own.

Zuko leaned forward, and pulled Mai toward him, positioning her between his knees again, and pulling her shirt open.

"Lick her tits, Zuzu," Azula said.

Ty Lee pulled Jet's head back as Zuko leaned in and laved his tongue over a nipple. Mai's soft noises blended with Ty Lee's nicely. And Ty Lee's big brown eyes were captivating on his way to his second orgasm.

"You're really close," she said. She was right. His nerves felt fried. He chanced another glance at Zuko, watched the Prince's hands push across Mai's skin.

"More teeth," Azula demanded, and Jet watched as Zuko's lips pulled back slightly. He scraped his teeth over her lightly, making her shudder, and moan instead of gasp. She was so quiet.

Jet felt Ty Lee watching him. "You like him, don't you?" she asked, pressing her mouth up against his ear. Jet grunted. He was close. He was so close. She was picking up the pace, and he wasn't going to last much longer. 

He saw Zuko's hand dip down, and his fingers must have been in Mai now because the girl pitched, clutching his thighs for support. The look on Zuko's face. The look on his fucking face.

Ty Lee yanked his hair hard enough to make him look at her. Her pretty round cheeks were flushed, and her pupils were blown so wide. Jet was too close. He wasn't going to make it. 

There was a keening sound, high, and nothing like Mai would ever make, and Jet came in time with the princess. They locked eyes a moment, just a moment, and he saw her, leg's spread wide, fingers busy, almost as gorgeous as her brother. 

They made the same face, he realized as orgasm hit again. Ty Lee moaned, pushing down, bringing herself to completion before he'd fully lost his erection. She wiggled, and shuddered, and stilled, head thrown back, panting at the ceiling. 

"Fuck," she said.

Azula gave her a small sound of agreement. The room fell quiet save for Mai's soft, gasping sounds, and the wet noises of Zuko's mouth on her. She clutched her boyfriend's head to her chest as she followed silently. She was gorgeous. Zuko had great taste.

The prince pulled back, and pecked her gently on the lips. She was going to be Fire Lady some day. That girl had to know. 

Ty Lee made a soft sound, rubbing his shoulder before she pulled off. He fell out of her with a soft squelching noise that made her giggle. It seemed so quiet. Jet leaned into her, holding her legs by the crook of her knees. 

He could just sleep right there. It wouldn't be a problem. His legs were useless, and his mind was nothing but that almond jelly he'd been eating. He felt Zuko's weight lean into his side a bit. The other firebender was burning hot. His fire flickered against Jet and he wanted more, but he was so tired.

"Fuck," Zuko said. He was certainly articulate. "What do you wanna do now?" he asked after a long period of silence. Jet felt like he was half asleep already, brain fogged with all the thin blood orgasm had pumped into his brain.

"Sleep maybe," Azula said. 

There was a rustling and a shifting, but Jet didn't bother to open his eyes and see what it was. He felt light, and his limbs tingled with a lingering goodness. Sleep welled up like the dark water under Lake Laogai. Like the submersion tank as he was lowered under.

He woke with a start, the first golden rays of light falling onto his face. The fire in his body immediately stirred, burning through his veins, waking up his dead limbs. He could hardly feel his right arm except for a faint, heated tingle. The left was thankfully fine though.

Ty Lee was laying over his arm, still topless, face even more doll like in sleep. It was a good thing the Fire Nation was so warm. He found himself in a similar state of undress, shirt hanging as open as the front of his pants. 

Gently, he pushed her off. The arm was so dead it hurt, and his shoulder felt similarly stiff when he moved. He stretched, cracking his neck loudly. 

"That sounded good," he heard Zuko say. The boy was laying next to him so that they were almost hip to hip, leaned away from each other. He'd been using Mai's thigh as a pillow. "I could use some of that right now," he continued, sitting up, and following suit. 

Jet didn't hear anything, but he sighed as if the pops had simply been inaudible. 

"Sleep well?" The prince asked then, blinking at the sunlight. 

Jet grunted a response, looking around. No one had bothered redressing before passing out, and it looked like not a single servant had been brave enough to enter the room again after they left. Good for them. Jet would have stayed the hell away too if he'd been in their position.

That had to be awkward. He couldn't imagine catering to teenagers as they prepared for an orgy once let alone doing it for a living. 

"They'll come with breakfast soon," Zuko continued, lacing his fingers together in front of himself and pushing. His shoulders gave a satisfying snap that Jet felt almost vicariously. Zuko took a turn to groan, leaning back into the couch. 

Sitting up next to each other with their pants undone, it was easy to see they were both hard, but Jet was unsure of the etiquette surrounding this, and his bruised knuckles warned him against just bullshitting it the way he normally would. Especially not with Azula sleeping no more than three feet away.

Zuko was kind enough to solve the problem for him. Jet watched as the other boy's hand slid up to wrap around himself. The prince's head lolled back on the cushions, bottom lip held between his teeth as he jerked himself off. 

If Jet hadn't already been hard, he certainly would be now. It didn't seem so out of place anymore. He fell into rhythm beside the other boy. It was just like doing forms together. Their fire met, and matched, thrumming in the air between them.

Zuko's free hand spasmed on the seat against Jet's thigh as he came. As Jet came. as they crested together. When Jet opened his eyes again, the sun had broken over the cliffs surrounding Caldera and was blazing bright outside the window.

He had the brief thought that is was gorgeous before he remembered that this was the fucking Fire Nation. 

The prince made a contented sound beside him. Jet could hear the other boy tucking himself back into his pants. Ty Lee's legs were still draped over Jet's lap and he was lucky he hadn't cum on her. It had splattered up his chest instead. Something he wasn't really sure what to do with.

"Get dressed," Zuko told him softly, smacking his arm so lightly in hardly made a sound. Jet grunted, wiping the semen off his skin with the undersides of his fingers, and drying them on the front of the cushions between his knees.

He did his shirt up the best he could, the laces and style unfamiliar, and he had no knowledge of how they worked having been put in them every time he had to get dressed. Zuko made an amused sound that was more a chuff of air hissing through his teeth. He batted Jet's groggy hands away, seemingly in good humor.

"Can't even dress yourself," he said, sliding off the couch and onto his knees between Jet's legs. Jet felt himself try to stir in response to that, and Zuko gave him half a chuckle before doing his pants up. "Chill out," he said, reaching for the ties of the other boy's shirt. 

Jet tried to return the mirth, but he was a bit too out of it. The sun may have woken his body, but it didn't seem to have woken his mind. His brain was still bogged down heavily by all that had happened last night. 

When Jet's shirt was in proper order, Zuko reached behind him and tugged his belt out of the cushions, looping it back around his waist. 

"There," he said, putting a hand on Jet's chest as he drew back. "Now I need to wake up Azula."

Jet frowned, and Zuko made another amused sound, smiling wryly. He turned to his sister, and pushed her bangs out of her face with great care. Jet watched in confusion as the Prince pressed a kiss to her forehead. 

"Azula," he said softly. "The sun's up."

She groaned, limbs moving in a sleep logged arc. "I know that dummy," she said. "I'm a firebender." The claim was punctuated by a loud yawn. "I rise with the sun."

Zuko gave her an exasperated smile. Jet kept watching as the prince got up, collecting his sister's clothes from the floor and returning to her. He helped her up off the couch, and into her pants like she was a small child, sliding her boots onto her feet for her, and making sure she was in order. He gave her another soft kiss, this one on the lips, before sitting her back down.

It was a strange amount of tenderness to be afforded someone who was likely a devil in disguise. Not a real human, but rather some changeling beast smuggled into a crib in the night to replace one. 

She was a monster. A real monster. The kind people told stories about. The kind that burned babies and raped women. She was a wicked witch. For whatever reason though, Zuko adored her. It watered a bouquet of pity in Jet's chest. How badly had Zuko been treated here that he could love someone like that?

The prince woke Mai next, helping her only minimally to redress herself. Unlike Azula, now napping again after being dressed, she seemed to be fairly competent. She woke Ty Lee by jiggling one of her feet, making the girl start.

"Put your fucking shirt on," she hissed. "Breakfast will be here soon."

Ty Lee grumbled, looking around for the article of clothing, holding her breasts to her chest as if her nipples had caught chill. Jet leaned forward, reaching under the couch, and pulling the pink garment back out into the open.

"Here," he said, offering it to her.

She offered him a small thanks, too tired to bother with her smiley mask.

Breakfast arrived moments later, heralded by a knock on the door. Zuko was the one who answered, fully in charge, and seeming confident for once as he directed the servants where to put the table. He woke Azula again, sliding a plate in front of her when she screwed up her brows in confusion.

"This is shit," she said automatically, but she ate it anyway, seeming to drift in and out of sleep even as she did that. 

"What are you doing today?" Mai asked when Zuko sat down and served himself a plate. 

"I have training in the morning," the prince said. "And then probably lectures unless something comes up. There hasn't been any more talk of strategy meetings or war room shenanigans, so I suppose it's nothing but routine."

"No princely duties?" she asked.

"No," he told her.

"You should come with Ty Lee and I when we go into the market today," she replied. "Azula has some important princess work," the girl paused, looking disgusted for whatever reason. "You can bring your pet if you want."

"I'm not a pet," Jet protested. Maybe Azula could get away with calling him shit like that but that was because she was a superhuman fiend from the seventh hell.

Mai regarded him cooly, and it seemed like the first time she'd actually done so. He found himself bristling with annoyance. 

"I suppose not," she said. Her voice was completely flat. "More of a wild animal he's trying to break."

Jet snarled, hand snaking out.

Zuko caught it before it got anywhere, his thumb pressing hard into Jet's palm, burning hot. "You are very far over the line right now," he hissed, anger clear on his face. "Do not threaten physical violence on my fiance."

Fiance. Jet wanted to laugh.

"And you," Zuko continued, turning on Mai. "I expect better. You're not Azula."

"Damn straight she isn't me. If she was me she'd be perfect," Azula muttered. 

"What a beautiful morning," Ty Lee interjected, all projected ignorance and bliss. Jet appreciated it for what it was worth.

It was easier not to think of these people as Fire Nation, he realized. If he just pretended they were normal, and their clothes weren't so red.

Jet had worn red all his life. He loved the color. It was his favorite. Despite everything. It was his favorite color. He'd worn it through the city gates of Ba Sing Se. He'd been more obvious a bender in disguise than Li and he hadn't even known it.

"Do you want to come?" Mai asked. Her voice was steely. 

"Yes," Zuko said. "I'd like to come."

"It could be a double date!" Ty Lee said excitedly. Jet turned a desperate look on her. "I call Mai!' She concluded, wiggling her hand at the other girl over the table.

"I can't believe father isn't going to let me go along for this," Azula griped. "I wish I was you Zuzu. Maybe if father didn't love me I'd be allowed to do what I wanted too."

Zuko flinched. Jet saw air hiss past his teeth more than he heard it. 

On the ferry, one of the few things Li had been willing to say was that all he'd ever wanted was to go back home. Despite everything, Zuko loved his monster sister like she was harmless. The shame on his face when his bloody, burned, scared face had been openly and mockingly discussed. The way he'd spoken of the incident, a "punishment", a just one. 

Every bit of scorn the prince had received in his life, he believed he deserved. The realization shook Jet a bit. Even he'd never thought the Fire Nation was something he deserved. Zuko sat at the center, at the eye of the storm with wicked people shoving him full of wicked things, and he believed everything bad in the world was probably his fault because he'd been told it and no one from the Fire Nation was ever taught to question.

Zuko did not question his father. Even burned and abused, he believed his father wanted to do the right thing. Or he was trying to.

Jet had a chance. Jet had an opening. He could change this. He could pivot this war, and he could use Zuko to do it. 

He pretended he hadn't just had an epiphany, and served himself a plate. Mai was glaring at him, he realized. He ignored her. Zuko was, as always, a shield he used to wedge between himself and the innards of the Fire Nation’s great gullet. So long as Jet stayed close to him, he was safe.

Mai wouldn't do anything with her sweetheart sitting right there.

Breakfast rounded out quickly after that, the room falling into sleepy silence. Zuko excused himself when he was done, motioning Jet to come with him. "We have to be at training soon," he said, pulling the wheeled table away from the couch to let Jet squeeze past Ty Lee. 

"Try not to burn the rest of your face off," Azula called after them. Her voice was still heavy with drowse.


	9. Chapter 9

Master Buwei was waiting for them. He sized them up with an unimpressed air. "You're late," he said tersely. "And you've both got hickeys on your necks," he added.

He gave a sharp exhale through his nose, steam, or maybe smoke curling into the air. "You are my students," he hissed. Jet balled his hands into fists, ready for the man to start screaming that fucking the prince was treason and Jet should die. "I expect you to act with some a sense of decorum. I will not tolerate you spending your nights in whore houses only to come to class in yesterday's clothes, smelling of bodily fluids, and covered in hickeys!"

Jet felt an instant wave of relief, one that was mirrored in a small sound from Zuko.

"As punishment," the man said, "You will do hot squats for the first half hour of training."

Hot squats were a drill that was not accurately named. They were done cold. Hands behind the head, ankles digging into your thighs, back up again. No fire even potentially involved.

Zuko's brow furrowed in concentration, but he seemed used to the punishment. Jet on the other hand was feeling the burn. His combat expertise had never really been based on the strength of his thighs. In the forest, it had been all scraping and scrambling, climbing trees, and hoisting himself over rock with his swords. He was strongest in his upper body and calves. This was hell.

Zuko seemed to know it too, gloating silently, a smirk tugging gently at the right corner of his mouth. The bastard. The absolute bastard. 

He had strong legs. Jet had known that after groping him on the ferry, but seeing it in action was another thing all together. His form was perfect, even when Jet's legs were on fire, and screaming, and that's why they called them hot squats. No shit.

"You're sloppy!" Buwei chastised, shooting a small line of fire at Jet's foot. Jet jerked back, rolling over one shoulder, and coming up on his feet. The look on Buwei's face was a thin attempt to hide surprise. 

This was the first time Buwei had aimed a fire at him since their initial encounter, Jet realized, eyes wide, bare chest fluttering. He couldn't take his eyes off the teacher. The fire Bender. He'd just been struck at. It had never happened without warning before. Where were his swords. 

Jet felt the flame welling up in his throat. Buwei stood there, that veiled look of shock in his face as Jet's breath got hotter too fast. He was going to burn himself, but he didn't know what to do. 

Zuko stepped between them, back to Buwei, hands up in an odd form Jet had never seen before.

"Don't do that," Zuko said, and Jet wasn't sure who he was addressing, but he couldn't just stop, not when his throat was so hot, and he could see the embers staring to crackle. "He has combat shock," Zuko explained. 

Jet tried to look back at Buwei, the threat. He had to keep the threat in sight line. But Zuko was standing there, knuckles going white in the air where he gripped nothing in his sure hands.

"Are you okay?" the prince asked. Jet wanted to run, but his feet were stuck to the ground, like Dai Li gloves had wrapped over his toes. "Jet?" He took a step forward, foot sliding along the ground. Jet didn't know how to see him then. The face of someone who was half a friend but only newly, the form of an enemy pointed at him, but he'd never seen a soldier use that stance. 

"I'm going to come closer," he said clearly. Jet stole a glance at his feet, then back up to his hands and then his face. He tried to start back again, but he only made it a half step. "It's fine," Zuko said. "I'm not going to hurt you," and Jet believed him because Zuko couldn't lie. 

He swallowed, mouth still open, still issuing heat.

"Should I call the guard?" Buwei asked.

Jet's attention snapped back to him, and he felt the fire behind his teeth before it came out, just like it had his first night on Fire Nation soil when he'd still thought Zuko's name was Li. 

Zuko caught the fire, wincing a bit at the heat of it before he spun it away between his hands. He used the momentum of the movement to cover the last few feet between them, hands coming out to wrap around Jet's face and the back of his neck.

Zuko was the only firebender Jet had ever seen put out a fire. Zuko had put out his fire inside his own body three times now that he could remember. Probably more than that when he'd been incoherent in Ba Sing Se, and on the ship. Jet couldn't tap into those things though. They were lost to him. He had no more knowledge of his journey to the Fire Nation than Zuko had had about his banishment from it.

Jet felt his knees buckle, and he sank to the ground, Zuko crouching in front of him. "Breathe," the prince told him, and he did. He clutched at the other boy's wrists, trying to focus. In. Out. Breathe. Look at Zuko. Match Zuko.

He could still see Buwei though, and his eyes were drawn to the threat like a moth to a flame. 

"Is there anything I could do?" the man asked. Jet tried to snarl at him. 

"No," Zuko said. "Just wait. We may have to cancel today."

The man turned and walked away. The second he was out of sight, Jet felt himself cool, like Zuko was stealing all the heat from him. How could he take so much? 

"Are you breathing steady?" the Prince asked. Jet nodded, and he pulled the hand on his mouth away. "Keeping your breath steady and constant is a key foundation of firebending basics," he said, and Jet knew this now, but he listened. "Hyperventilating will fan the flames too fast, and you'll loose control."

Jet nodded. Swallowing. His mouth was tangy. It tasted like ash. 

"He's our teacher," Zuko continued. "He's not an enemy. He's not a threat. He's not going to hurt you."

How many times had Zuko calmed men from these attacks, Jet wondered. He'd been in the other boy's current position so often, but hardly had he ever had to receive this care. Looking into Zuko's face now was like looking into his own. A stonier, more placid version of his own face on the Fire Nation prince. 

It was so surreal. This whole thing- the last week and how many days- was so surreal. Somehow, Zuko being there abated the paranoia though. Some how, knowing the prince wouldn't hurt him- and he'd always known- would keep him safe, had been comforting. Probably more because he was the prince than because he was Zuko. But he'd never have trusted this instinct to trust if it hadn't been Zuko. Zuko who couldn't lie to save his life.

He swallowed again, and took a shaky breath through his mouth. 

"Yeah," he said.

"Can you go on with the lesson?" Zuko asked.

"Yeah." Jet nodded, pushing away, and scrambling backwards onto his feet. The prince let him go.

"Good," he said. 

Buwei was sitting on the grass beneath a small tree, hands lying palm up in his lap. Jet knew the meditation stance. He'd been forced to take it every day since lessons started. "Are you done?" he asked without opening his eyes.

Jet wanted to laugh at the attempt to seem so in control when he'd just lost it like that. A good teacher knew the limit of his students. Jet knew this. He was a good teacher. He'd trained scores of children to be warriors. To protect themselves from people like Buwei.

"Yes," Zuko said. 

"I'm impressed, Jet," Buwei stated, standing up in a single fluid motion. "The breath of fire is usually something that has to be taught, but you seem to be a natural to the technique."

"What's he talking about?" Jet asked.

"I'm talking about fire breathing," Buwei clarified. "Prince Zuko's uncle, The Dragon Of The West, was very skilled with the breath of fire. He boasts that many things can be done with it if the wielder is creative enough." He paused, regarding Jet coolly. "Most consider it little more than a party trick."

"What do you think?" Zuko asked.

"I have never seen evidence of it being as useful as he claims," Buwei said. "And considering he is a traitor to the throne his word is not very trusted any longer."

"You're wrong," Zuko hissed. "When my men were trapped in a blizzard in the south pole, the breath of fire was the only thing that kept them alive. If it hadn't been for my uncle teaching us the technique, we would have frozen solid before we ever found our ship again. It's saved my life countless times."

Buwei regarded Zuko with veiled interest. "How does this work exactly?" he asked.

"It's a very versatile technique," Zuko said, drawing up to his full height. "My uncle says that it takes a different kind of fire to warm a lover. If you use the breath of fire as it's taught, you get an overwhelming blast that warms up the entire body of the user. If you use it in small bursts, or simply exhale chi, not bothering to create any fire at all, you can warm the body and have it be invisible that the user is firebending at all."

That explained how warm Li's hands had been even after clutching the railing so long. 

Buwei didn't bother to hide the impressed look on his face anymore. "Are those the only uses?" he asked.

"Well it can be modified however you like," Zuko said. "Uncle uses it in conjunction with raising heat in a single body part. That's how he heats his tea. It works to boil water too." The prince paused, brow creased. "Aren't you a master?" he asked. "Shouldn't you know this?"

"These are all things Iroh came up with himself," Buwei said assuredly.

"But he taught so many soldiers. Certainly it's gotten back to the capitol by now," Zuko reasoned.

"This is the first I'm hearing of it," Buwei admitted. He looked thoughtful.

Zuko looked exasperated. "How did you become a master without learning this?" he exploded. "This is absurd!" 

Jet turned a hard smirk on the old man, sizing him up. Suddenly, Zuko, with more field experience and surprisingly less traditionalism, looked like a more competent bender.

"Is father just throwing any upstart straight out of academy at my feet?" the prince demanded.

Buwei managed a stony impassiveness that had Jet kind of impressed. If he'd been being talked to like this, he'd have hurt the person who opened their mouth. That would be treason though. Zuko was fully within his right to pull rank over his teacher. It was beautiful.

"You're fired! I can continue training on my own!" Zuko declared.

To his benefit, Buwei's mask did not crack. "You are running a risk as an inexperienced, novice bender-" he began.

"You've never even seen combat!" Zuko yelled, interrupting him. "You've never used these forms outside of a dojo! You don't have the adaptive insight into the art that I need. I need a more experienced master," he ground out, looming into Buwei's space. 

Jet blinked. He'd never seen Zuko go all princely privilege, but it was actually kind of impressive. Zuko leaned so far into Buwei's face that despite being taller, the man had to lean back at an odd angle to avoid him.

"You're fired," he snarled.

Buwei closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped back. Then he dipped into a low bow and excused himself. Probably to cry, Jet thought as he watched him go.

"What do we do now?" he asked, when the man was out of sight.

"We find Mai," Zuko said. "I have a date to go on."

"What, really?" Jet asked.

"Yes."

"You're gonna take me down into the city?" Jet felt incredulous. 

"Would you rather stay here?" Zuko asked.

Alone? In a Fire Nation nest, surrounded by Dai Li. No. The only reason Jet was able to maintain what little sanity he had left was Zuko's assured protection.

"I don't want to see that," Jet said softly, and he couldn't imagine what he'd respond with, seeing these people live their lives like they were just people and they weren't using their tax dollars to fund the genocide of other races.

Zuko frowned. "I need to spend more time with her," he said.

Jet swallowed. How did he argue this? He was usually so good with words, but how did he argue this without seeming desperate or needy or terrified like he really was. 

Zuko didn't give him the time to figure it out. Before Jet could say anything, he turned, and headed for the door they'd come through. He walked them in the direction of his rooms, but passed them by instead of turning, passing a set of ornate doors like barely anything Jet had seen even in the palace.

"Fancy," Jet remarked, looking at the carved gold guiding on the frame.

"Those are my father's rooms," Zuko said. The Prince didn't bother to stop and admire the metal work like Jet had, and Jet had to jog to catch up as the other boy rounded the corner.

It seemed like his rooms and his fathers were both set into a central cubicle. Smart. It would make it difficult to reach the royal sleeping chambers, keeping them easily defensible. 

Zuko came to a stop before a set of doors almost identical to his own, and knocked. 

"Who is it?" Jet heard Azula ask in a strange falsetto. 

"It's me," Zuko responded, voice raised to be heard through the thick wood. 

"Open it," Jet heard Azula snap more quietly. The doors opened obediently, showing a room with a large fountain set in the center of it, a thin garden tucked down some steps. Azula and her clique were lounging on ornate cushions on the floor.

"I knew you'd be back," she said, voice full of smug superiority. "No one can resist my charms after all. Isn't that right Ty Lee?"

"Of course," Ty Lee piped. The smile on her face was so solid Jet would have been fooled if he hadn't seen her when Azula had her back turned. 

"See?" She asked, as if Ty Lee's agreement made anything law. 

"Yeah," Zuko said awkwardly. "Actually I'm here because training was cancelled today. So, Mai," he said, addressing the girl. She shot him an almost smile in return.

"Yes?" she asked, tone still carefully dull.

"Would you and Ty Lee like to accompany us into town?" he asked. 

Mai sighed heavily, looking up and away, as if trying to remember something. "Gee, I don't know, Zuko," she replied languidly. "I don't know if I have the time."

Zuko's face was nothing but shock. "But- this morning," he started, and she laughed, holding her sleeve up to her mouth.

"By Agni, you idiot, I'm joking," she said, as if that had actually been clear at all. Were all Fire Nation girls so fond of cruel games?

Azula laughed, whole body heaving with her amusement. "Oh good one, Mai," she crowed. "You got him to look like a tomato-persimmon!" 

"Of course we'll go, Zuko," Mai said, before Zuko could get any more embarrassed than he already was and storm out of the room. She stood in a movement that still managed to be surprisingly still. The way she moved kind of freaked Jet out. He'd never seen anyone else move like that. She was too perfect and refined. 

Ty Lee followed her like an obedient puppy.

"I can't believe you shirked training," Mai said more quietly once she was in the hallway with them. 

"My teacher was inadequate. I've decided to switch to private study starting tomorrow," Zuko explained. 

She simpered at him. It was bizarre. So was the way she wound her arms around his, leaning against his side.

Ty Lee's hands fell on Jet's arm the same way, and she looked up at him expectantly.

"What are you doing?" Jet asked her.

"This is how men and women walk together," she explained kindly. Jet was thankful for the lack of condescension in her voice. "You're a fancy person now, act like it," she joked then, jostling his arm a bit. He let her explain to him how to hold his arm for her, as they walked.

"Your etiquette teacher should teach you this at some point," she said. "And they'll be impressed because you already know."

Jet doubted that would be true. Most of the teachers here seemed upset when he didn't already know the things they were supposed to teach him. It seemed like a strange dichotomy to him.

Zuko lead them down the way they went for night training when they did it, and out into a courtyard. They waited as he spoke curtly to one of the servants standing there. Jet didn't bother paying attention to what Zuko was saying. He was too busy looking around at everything for the first time in daylight. 

The castle gleamed all red wood and gold filigree. He'd never seen such nice things before coming here. Never. Some of the clothes they'd given him- there was an undershirt he'd worn one day that had been thin enough he could see his own skin through it. 

"It's kind of amazing isn't it?" Ty Lee asked.

"Yeah," Jet told her. 

"Mai, and Zuko, and Azula grew up here, but I only started coming to the palace when I was five," she said. "I remember the first time I saw it."

He didn't. He'd been in too much of a turn. He barely remembered anything about getting here. What had happened, he didn't know. He could have had a huge reaction to it, pointing and frothing at the mouth for all he was aware. 

"I told my mother I wanted to live here," she said wistfully. 

A large palanquin had been brought around in front of the palace steps, and the carriers were pulling back the curtains as a small entourage of guards amassed around it. Zuko and Mai slipped in first, Ty Lee guiding Jet as he reluctantly followed. 

He didn't want to be here. He didn't want to be doing this. He couldn't stay at the palace alone but he didn't want to go either. 

The palanquin raised steadily upward, and Jet felt the bustle of feet as they carried them along. He and Ty Lee were squished close together, legs pressed against one another from hip to ankle. Across from them, Zuko and Mai sat the same, Mai still leaning into his arm so that she was nearly in his lap.

"What do you want to do in town?" he asked, fussing with the curtains, so that he could watch the world as it drew by them. Jet shied away from the small opening he made.

"I want to look for a new set of throwing knives," Mai explained.

"Don't you have enough?" Zuko replied.

Mai looked offended. "I want a new set," she said flatly. "I like buying a new set whenever I have a new target." Her eyes flashed to Jet, and he got the distinct feeling that hadn't even been a veiled threat. 

Zuko looked between the two of them awkwardly. "Na said there was this new restaurant that opened up a few weeks ago," he began.

"Azula already took us," Mai stated. She remained flat, and bored. Jet didn't think he'd ever seen a harder date. 

Jet glanced at Ty Lee. "Maybe you have ideas," he suggested. The look on her face was nothing short of joy. Like no one had ever bothered asking. He made a mental note to ask her her opinions as often as possible.

"Well there are a lot of amazing stores," Ty Lee said. "I think we should shop for a while, and maybe then we'll get something to eat together. If we want to stay in town we can catch a play. They sometimes have those right around sunset, and they're lovely to watch."

Jet liked Ty Lee a lot better. He shot Zuko a gloating smile. The other boy just pouted at him. 

"Do you think I should buy new shoes?" the girl asked, holding her foot up a bit so that he could see the ones she was wearing. They were pink, and nicer than any pair Jet had ever owned.

"Those ones look great," he said. She beamed at him, wrapping her hands around his arm again, and then turning her attention to Mai.

"I think I got the better date," she mock-whispered conspiratorially to the other girl. Mai narrowed her eyes at her. 

So he and Ty Lee were in agreement. Awesome. 

"I'll buy some new shoes anyway," Ty Lee continued. "I can show them to Azula when we get back. She'll probably think they're lovely. She always likes it when I have new clothes. Maybe I can get one of those dresses that just came into fashion. What do you think, Mai?"

"I think they're impractical," Mai dead panned.

"Well of course they're impractical," Ty Lee told her. "It's not about what you can do in the clothes. It's about how you look. Right Jet?"

"I think I'm with Mai on this one," he said.

Ty Lee offered him an indulgent smile. "Well you would be. Country kid and all. You've never lived the high life before. You don't understand," she explained. He raised an eyebrow at her. "When you're in a big, silly dress you can't do anything."

"I guess I don't understand. That sounds like a problem," he told her.

"Oh but it's not," she said. "When you can't do anything, and you're rich other people have to do things for you." She sounded absolutely delighted. 

"When we get there, I'll show you my favorite shops," she said, leaning against his side. He didn't want to go. He could smell the city, cooking foods, and horse shit swept off roads. He could hear it. 

It was right there, just beyond the curtains. All he'd have to do was nudge them, and he could see. 

He looked at Zuko's face, the scar over his left eye illuminated by a large sliver of sunlight. He was watching them. All those witless murderers mulling about ignorant of what they wrought. Zuko hadn't let him bring his swords. Jet had thought to ask, but he'd known the answer already. 

He swallowed hard as the footmen drew to a stop, and lowered them gently to the ground.

The guards had gathered around outside when Jet finally forced himself to look through the curtains. Zuko and Mai were standing in the center, arm in arm.

"Are we going?" Ty Lee asked.

Jet nodded, trying to swallow his heart again. He steeled himself. This was just like battle. Just like battle. Just like-

The sun hit his face, and it was so strong it thrummed through his body. He felt fire crackle deep in his veins. He could smell fire, other people's fire all around him. The guards, benders on the street, Zuko.

He latched onto Zuko, not the strongest flame, but the most distinctive. It burned hot, and tight, and low like it was being strangled. It sat in the prince's chest, biding it's time until it was let out.

"Which shops would you like to see?" A guard asked. Zuko looked to Mai, and Jet tried to focus on them while she explained where she wished to go.

"Oh look at that!" Ty Lee exclaimed happily. She was pointing to a raised platform where a couple of firebenders were conjuring animals from their fire, making them leap around the stage. "I haven't seen a Fire Tamer in ages, Mai!" she continued. "Can we go? Can we please?"

Mai sighed heavily, rolling her eyes. "Fine," she said.

Jet was entranced by a little dog-monkey that one man had summoned. He was doing something with his hands like a puppeteer, hard to see at this distance, making the little thing trot along the edge of the stage. It moved almost like a real dog-monkey, sniffing at the crowd, at the wooden floor it stood on- miraculously not burning- until it ran into a bird-rabbit the other bender had brought up.

The bird-rabbit cawed silently, and the two animals circled each other. Jet watched them as he was pushed toward the stage. The animals engaged in a mock fight, the dog-monkey tearing the bird-rabbit's head from its body, making it vanish into nothing. 

The victorious fire form trotted around the stage again before vanishing.

"For our next trick," The man who had controlled it boomed, "A dance between lovers!"

He held his hands out, sweeping his arms around his body in an arc, pulling a cat-stag from thin air. The animal held it's head high, antlers curling off its skull like a crown as it stepped slowly and majestically before its master.

The other bender followed the motion, bringing a cat-doe to life opposite it. The two constructs sniffed at each other, sized one another up, and began an ancient courting ritual, the buck bowing and scraping its toes on the stage, half prancing around the doe.

It was amazing. Jet had seen them do this in real life. He'd watched live counter parts of these flames dance for each other when they migrated to the forest in spring. It was beautiful. 

"What do you think?" Ty Lee asked him as the stag slid its face along side the doe's, their forms still before they too vanished.

"I didn't know firebenders could do that," he said, staring at the space between the bender's hands.

"It takes a lot of control," Zuko told him. "I wouldn't be able to manage such a complex form if I tried. I don't even think Azula could do that. She certainly couldn't make it move like it was alive."

"I wanna talk to them," Jet said.

"What?" Zuko asked, and Ty Lee probably would have held him down if she'd been expecting it, but she was distracted so he slipped away easily, breaking through their little ring of guards, and weaving through the crowd as the performers said their exiting speech and took their bows. 

There was a din of cheers as Jet rounded the side of the stage and cut one of the benders off. "Where'd you learn that?" he asked excitedly. 

The bender blinked at him. "You've never seen Fire Taming before?" the man asked. His skin was a bit dark for the usual Fire Nation fare, and Jet liked the angles of his face, not because they were handsome but because they weren't. It made him think of the rough hewn earth people he'd grown up with.

"No," Jet said. 

The man looked him up and down. "You must be from the colonies. They teach it in some of the advanced bending colleges. It's one of our nation's fine arts."

"It's amazing," Jet said. "I didn't know there were ways to use it that didn't involve-" He cut off, not finding the word he wanted for the carnage flame had wrought in his home.

The man's eyes were curious. "Involve?" he prompted.

"Death," Jet said bitterly. 

The performer blinked at him, frowning. "Which colony were you from?" he asked? 

"Gaipan," Jet said. It hadn't been his town, but it had been the town beneath his forest that had stayed. The one not razed to the ground for resistance. Once, he'd seen those people as weak for their surrender, but now he just saw them as smart.

"Didn't water benders destroy that village?" the man asked.

"What? No. It was a group of resistance fighters trying to drive the invading soldiers out," Jet told him.

"Hell of a job they did. Dumb dirt grubbers."

Shame burned in Jet's throat thinking about how the damn had burst, and the way that the little houses had looked in the distance as the water came rushing toward them. He'd done that. He was the dumb dirt grubber. He deserved that name. How many lives had he ruined? How many lives would he have ended if Sokka hadn't been there?

"Yeah," he said softly. "Who was your teacher?" he asked.

"Master Jiao-Long," the man said. 

"Thank you," Jet said, he could hear Zuko and the guards catching up to him. He turned around just in time to see an out of breath Prince storm into his personal space.

"What did you think you were doing running off like that?" he demanded. Jet smirked at him. "You could have gotten yourself lost! What if something happened, or you had one of those fits where you forget things?"

"Hey, hey chill out," Jet said, holding up his hands palms out.

"Chill? The only way I could chill out is if they put me in a fucking cold room. What in all of fire's warmth got into you?"

"I found us a new Firebending teacher," Jet told him, and Zuko instantly lost the edge to his anger, deflating faster than a war balloon that had been poked full of holes.

"What?" he asked, eyes flicking from Jet to the performer standing behind him. "I'm not going to learn how to do fancy tricks. Father would never approve of-"

"Oh shut up," Jet said, turning back to the man. "Where can I find your teacher?" he asked.

"Is that the prince?" the man asked, looking at Zuko, and then at the guards. His eyes caught on the pin in Zuko's top knot and stayed there before he tore them away. "Avatar Rokku's Advanced Bending College," he said quickly. "The prince needs a master?" he asked then.

"I fired mine," Zuko said. "This morning."

"Sifu will be so mad with me," the performer said softly.

"I won't tell who told," Jet said conspiratorially. 

"No- I," the man said, looking back at Zuko, and then bowing as if it were a compulsive thing. "I need to go," he said.

"Let's go to that college," Jet said then, turning back to Zuko.

"No," the prince said harshly. "I'm on a date."

"Well when we're done with the shopping," Jet said.

"When we're done with the shopping there will be more date things for me to do. With Mai," he stressed.

"Well you can take Mai to the college," Jet argued.

Zuko made an extremely annoyed sound, throwing his hands up in the air. "Why are you so dense?" he demanded. "Stick with us, and stick close. I don't want to hear anything more about this stupid college."

It wasn't stupid, but if Zuko was pissed he could sick those guards on him, and Jet knew at least two of them were benders. Not to mention the lack of swords. It was true. That had been reckless, running away in the midst of enemy territory. Zuko was right. It wasn't going to be the last he heard about this though. Jet just needed to bide time.

"Do you know where this college is?" he asked Ty Lee when Zuko returned to Mai's side. 

"Yeah," she said. "It's near the eastern gate to the city. The avatar positioned it so that sun's first light would stream through the gates and onto the school every day. The stained glass lights up like fire," she said.

"Cool," Jet told her softly. 

The royal couple led them through a number of smithies, some clothing stores, a shoe store because Ty Lee begged- they stayed there a long time as she tried on shoes and Jet had to pick a pair out for her from a list of ten favorites- a restaurant that only sold things that were so spicy they could be lethal if ingested in the wrong quantities, and a jewelry store where Zuko bought Mai a ring, a bracelet, and a necklace with a pair of matching earnings.

It was exhausting. Jet didn't think he'd ever been more tired. He couldn't keep his mind off the college, or the teacher waiting there for him.

Finally, they gathered outside a shop, and began discussing what to do next.

"I still think we should check out the college," Jet said as nonchalantly as he could manage.

"What is wrong with you?" Zuko demanded. "Why are you so set on ruining this?"

"I'm not," Jet told him languidly, ignoring the royal scorn. "I just thought Buwei maybe had a point when he said self teaching was dangerous, and as an inexperienced bender, I thought maybe I'd listen to that."

"You are the most reckless person I know! Almost the most reckless person I have ever met! Why do you care about this?" Zuko asked.

"Humor me?" Jet returned, and this was the closest he'd ever gotten to begging outside of the sack. He kind of hated it. It felt weak and dependent.

"Fine," Zuko growled. He gave Mai an apologetic look but she just shrugged. "Take us to Avatar Rokku's college," Zuko instructed the entourage around them.

They were taken back to the palanquin, ushered inside, and carried along quickly. This time, Jet didn't feel any fear at the idea of peaking out through the curtains, and he joined Zuko in doing so. People dragged by slowly, focused on their own lives, too used to royal presence to care about one moving along side them in the foot traffic.

It was easy to just imagine them as earth people instead. If Jet didn't look too hard, the red wasn't so obvious. The strange surreality of being here came over him again. That moment of intense depersonalization, aware- simply aware- of the lives and the existence of the thoughts and the individuality of all these people. Not wholly good or bad. Simply existing in time and space as they were. Flawed. Real.

He swallowed, and pulled away from the curtain, accidentally locking with Zuko's golden eyes. Fire blazed there, doing the math on him, reading him, understanding. It made him hungry. Zuko looked away but a second later, blushing softly as he did so often. 

"How are you feeling?" he asked Mai.

"Eh," she told him without bothering to look away from Ty Lee. The two girls seemed to be engaged in an intense, silently agreed upon staring contest. The Fire Nation was weird. 

Jet looked down at his lap, imagining what kind of person Jiao-Long was. A Master. He was probably stern like Buwei had been, but certainly someone who taught bending like that would be a good person and the same could not be said for Buwei. The fire creatures had stood on wood, touching it with their flaming feet, and left not a single scorch mark when they were gone. Jet had never imagined there was a way to control fire so closely.

The palanquin stopped, and was lowered once more to the ground. Jet was out of it in an instant, pulling Zuko along with him. He'd been the leader for so long, it was hard to remember his place here, but he knew what he was doing. 

The guards shouted as he broke through their ranks, pulling the prince along with them. He vaguely heard Mai yell that she would stay there with Ty Lee. There was a thundering of boots behind them, and Jet felt an edge creep into his mind at the sound of the Fire Nation standard issue footwear.

He knew those boots from any other shoe from a distance up to a few hundred yards.

"What are you doing?" Zuko demanded.

"I'm finding our new teacher!" Jet responded, shouldering the doors open. The college was beautiful inside, red and bronze, orange and yellow. Jet stared up at the walls as the guards caught up. 

"Are you alright your highness?" Jet heard one of them ask. 

"I'm fine," Zuko snipped. "I was living on the road for months. Stop coddling me."

"This is amazing!" Jet exclaimed, raising his arms to indicate the huge sky light that was the cause for so much color. "You need to get one of these in your bedroom!"

"Can I help you?" A thin, sharp voice asked, cutting through the excitement.

"Yes!" Jet said loudly, turning on the speaker. "Can you tell me where master Jiao-Long is?"

"Master Jiao-Long is not willing to see visitors at the moment," the receptionist said. She was sitting behind her desk, looking very severe with her braided hair. 

"Tell her it's the prince," Jet said impatiently.

She pushed her glasses up her nose, checking him up and down. "You are not the prince," she observed. 

Jet glared at her, pointing behind himself to Zuko. "He is," he explained.

The woman stood up a bit to peer over the high back of her desk. Her eyes went wide as soon as she saw him, looking at him with clear confusion in perfect clothes with his pin in his hair and all his guards around him.

"Yes, of course," she said. "Of course. And you wanted to see master Jiao-Long?" she asked.

"Yes," Jet told her. He looked down his nose at her, enjoying the feeling of superiority that Zuko's title gave him.

"Right this way," she said, gathering up a few scrolls and sweeping out of her seat down a hallway. 

Jet admired the building as they walked. The walls were carved like in the palace, but he found he appreciated it more here, knowing what kind of things this school taught. 

"Here," the receptionist said, stopping outside a door. "Master Jiao-Long uses this room, Be careful though, and don't say I didn't warn you."

"Whatever," Jet said, reaching for the door. 

He felt the air go dry as he opened it, and knew what was coming even before it had come. He could smell the fire, the energy bound for his face. He ducked out of instinct, but he could smell the tips of his hair singe. It raised panic in his throat, and he reached for his swords only to find them gone.

"You're bothering me," The woman who was standing inside said very calmly.

Jet snarled at her, fingers itching for something he could use to kill another person. Zuko's hand was on the back of his neck in an instant, forcing calm on him. 

"And you're afraid of fire," she added. "But you don't have your weapon. What is a non-bender with a phobia doing here bothering me?" she asked.

"He's not a non-bender," Zuko said. 

Jet watched the woman's eyes flick to him as if she was seeing him for the first time. Her eyes went up, and Jet knew she was staring at that stupid heirloom Zuko always wore on his head. She was Jiao-Long. She had to be. She was perfect.

"I saw your students preform today," Jet said, willing his voice to come out stronger than he felt, having Zuko's hand on him like that, taking over his will so effortlessly. "I think that you should replace our old master," he explained.

Her eyes narrowed further, not moving from Zuko's hair pin. "Why?" she asked.

"They were puppeteering fire animals," Jet explained.

"And you thought it was hot?" she asked a bit mockingly.

"Yeah. It was hot but the stage didn't burn," Jet told her. He could see it in his head so clearly, the fire on the wood not burning it.

He saw a bit of the tension slip out of her shoulders. She was looking at him again, this time more closely. She didn't even know she was the answer, but she was. She was what was going to make Jet feel human again. Really human again. Now he just felt like a lying monster trying to console itself with lies. 

She glanced above his head, and he looked at the hallway behind him. There wasn't a single scorch mark on the wood. His heart leapt up into his throat excitedly. 

"How do you do that?" he asked, pointing at the wood.

"Well partly it's treated," she told him. But Jet had seen treated buildings burn at the hands of benders a hundred times. "But mostly it's control," she continued.

"Teach us," he said, the request exploding out of his mouth so fast it was more of a demand really. 

"Teach you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And the prince of the Fire Nation?"

"Yes."

"Why?" she asked again. Jet stopped, tripping over his own feet. He hadn't thought of a reason to give her. He'd thought Zuko's dumb hair pin would be enough.

"Eh-" he said, words not coming out. He looked to Zuko who shrugged helpfully. Useless princes. "My village burned down," he told her. "I hate firebenders. I didn't even know I was one."

There was more curiosity in her eyes now. She gauged him again. 

"Teach us," he insisted, licking his lips, and in desperation adding "Please."

"I teach fine arts not combat bending. What would the Fire Lord say to me teaching his son?" she asked. It was reasonable. Jet was looking at her face, the hard up-swept lines of her eyes, and he flared nostrils, the strange tranquility of her thin lips. She was interesting, testing the boundary between strange and attractive. From the look of her though she couldn't have been over thirty seven. 

Jet looked to Zuko who met his eyes almost hesitantly. He looked reluctant, but Jet could see his stubbornness crumbling. He considered telling Zuko he'd blow him and well for this. Maybe that would have helped.

"You're a bending master," Zuko said. "You may not normally teach combat bending, but you learned it."

"I'm busy anyway," she said. "I don't have time-"

"Please!" Jet insisted, and her intense eyes flicked back to him. They were almost the same gold as Zuko's just darker. 

"Did your village have a name?" she asked. 

Jet felt his shoulders fall. He'd been so young, and so afraid. All he remembered about childhood were the wrong specifics, the way fire smelled, nasty faces in the flames, the name of the gang that had killed his parents. He'd lost so much to that fear. It had burned through his mind like a wild fire, replacing good things with bad ones. He'd forgotten his parent's faces, and his own name, and his own bending.

His village had no name anymore. He wasn't from anywhere. He was just some boy who had accidentally learned to survive in the forest, but couldn't even remember how. 

"I don't know it anymore," he told her.

"Come back tomorrow," she said. "When I'm not busy." She was silent, looking at him harshly. "And knock," she added. "Now go."

Zuko dragged him back to the palanquin, never taking his hand off Jet's neck. Not that he needed to keep it there. Jet already felt subdued beneath uncertainty and the face of his blurry childhood.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> both this chapter and the next are actually two chapters condensed because breaking them didn’t make any sense.

"Do you really not remember?" Zuko asked when they were alone again.

"No," Jet said, kicking his feet up on Zuko's couch. "I don't remember most stuff."

"Why?" the prince pushed.

Jet didn't know what to tell him. He took a rattling breath, sucking it deep down into his lungs until they were filled. It made the fire in his stomach run laps within him, excited by the nutrients air provided it.

"Things are spotty as far back as my memory goes," he said. "Even now sometimes I get little lapses, you know? Days I have, and people tell me about things I said or did but it's like I was just going without really being there at all. Like in my head I was all far away."

Zuko's face seemed concerned despite Jet's feigned nonchalance. He wondered if it was because what he was saying was so strange, or if it was because he was failing to hide.

"As far back as you can remember? I thought the Dai Li did that to you," Zuko responded.

Jet gave him a mirthless laugh. "They just made it worse," he told the other boy. "I guess it's this bad if I think about the beginning. The foggy periods are bigger, things are harder to piece together from what I've got, and there was no one around who can tell me what happened."

"What's the first thing you remember?" Zuko asked him. 

Jet gave the prince a weary look, unsure of the line of questioning. He'd never told anyone this. Longshot and Smellerbee had known, but they'd known in that uncanny way they just knew things about him. He remembered Zuko telling him about being banished though.

"The first thing I remember is fire," he said. "It's like a dream. You know how in a dream you just know things, and you don't remember how you got there? I'm a little boy. I don't know how old I am, but I'm small and everything seems really big, you know? And I'm standing in a street, and there's fire everywhere, and there's a house I see that's burning. I know it's my house, but I don't remember living in it, or what it looks like inside. I just know that's my house, and I think. That's my house. My house is burning. There's this lady screaming. I can hear her screaming. That's my mom. She's burning." Jet stopped, swallowing around thick saliva.

Suddenly he felt tiny and scared, and weak again, and could see it in his mind in the spaces between blinks. He took a shuddering breath. "There's this man," he continued, a little stronger. "He has fire coming out of his hands, and I see him turn to look at me, and he's smiling, and I know I'm going to die," he finished.

Zuko looked pale when he glanced back over at the prince.

"Sorry that was heavy, huh?" he asked. "I don't usually talk about that."

"I talked to you about the scar," Zuko said. "Truth for truth right?"

"Right," Jet told him. "After that it's just foggy. You know how you said it was for you after you got the scar?" he asked. "That sounds kind of like how it is. I just exist sometimes, and I'm not inside my body and it goes on without me until I come back. Or something."

There was a long pause. Jet stared into the red of the upholstery. It was patterned in a darker shade, complex swirls and knots mimicking fire in monotone.

"That sounds crazy," he decided out loud. He could hear Katara backing him up. Her self righteous voice had never left his head. Rather, it had moved in along side the voices he already thought in, mocking him every time he stumbled.

"No," Zuko told him. "I know what you mean."

Jet looked up, and he saw it again like he had that morning, his own mirror in the face of a firebender. Not just a firebender but a firebender prince. They ached the same and they fought the same. They felt the same hunger. On the inside, they burned the same.

They were different but they were also the same. Jet had never expected anyone else to tell him that made sense.

"The sages say that shock can hurt you spiritually the way that weapons can hurt you physically," Zuko explained. "Sometimes it happens as memory loss. Sometimes the memory can come back."

"My life has been nothing but shock," Jet said with an easy laugh that probably did nothing to hide his distress. 

"You're safe here," Zuko told him softly. He looked so sincere but the truth was he couldn't promise that and they both knew. Already, Azula had gotten them both more than once, and she was the little monster. Compared to her father she was tame, manageable.

Jet offered him another laugh.

"I'm going to bed," he said, swinging his legs off the couch.

Zuko followed him. Jet sat down on the edge of the bed, and watched the prince skirt around it. How many nights would they sleep side by side and not touch, Jet wondered.

In the forest, Jet had slept in piles with a hundred children all tangled up in each other as they lay strewn across the floor. On the road and in Ba Sing Se he'd slept tangled with Longshot and Smellerbee. He didn't know how much longer he could keep himself from pressing up against the heat of another fire. Habit, desire, arousal, they all said the same thing about what he should be doing.

The only thing that kept him across the bed from Zuko was the knowledge that the other boy was off limits. However, it seemed after last night that that wasn't so true anymore. 

Jet reached out. His fingers tips only just reached the prince's back and he rested them there, dragging slowly along the curve of the other boy's spine. Zuko gasped. His sleep clothes were so much thinner than his day clothes. The heat seeped though loudly. Jet craved it.

"Jet?" Zuko asked. His voice was so soft. The harsh gravel of it seemed to have died down.

Jet pulled back, remembering that morning, and Azula's face. "Goodnight," he said, pulling the covers up over his shoulders and laying down. 

Last night, he'd been fine, but he'd been intoxicated. It had made him forget. Maybe he wouldn't be able to approach it without alcohol for a while. Maybe he'd have to find out where to get that Blue Lotus wine.

How could Zuko protect him here when he couldn't even protect himself, Jet wondered as sleep reached up to cradle him. He remembered the way Azula clambered into the prince's lap. Neither one of them was safe. Zuko didn't seem to understand it though. The danger was normal.

Jet couldn't remember it but he'd been safe once. Zuko never had he realized. Zuko's father was the monster.

Master Jiao-long was the first thing he thought about when the sun crested the sky that morning. His eyes popped open, and he sat up too quickly, knocking a limp arm that had been draped over his chest aside.

Zuko groaned heavily as his own hand smacked him in the face. "What the fuck?" he asked, blinking blearily up at Jet.

"We need to go to the college," Jet told him excitedly.

Zuko's face crumbled into a massive pout. "No. No. Don't tell me you're on about that again," he complained, the gravel in his voice harsher in the early morning.

"We need that woman to teach us," Jet insisted, leaning over the other boy so that he'd almost pinned him. It was an intimate positioning but Jet ignored it the way he ignored the tent in his own pants, more focused on the excitement at hand.

"Why?" Zuko whined. It was a very dignified and courtly whine, Jet thought. It fit the prince wonderfully. 

"It's important," Jet told him. The person he was back in the forest, the person he was in Ba Sing Se, they both would have looked at him like he was insane, but maybe this could be the thing that saved him from being a monster like Azula and Ozai were. 

"Fine," Zuko said, rolling his eyes. It was a gesture very exaggerated by his scar which seemed almost like a theater mask as he pulled it.

Jet smiled, pulling back. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom," he announced. He caught sight of Zuko's face as he slid out of bed, the other boy's red cheeks, and threw him a wink. 

He wasn't really going to the bathroom. It was large, and strange, and impersonal with it's metal walls. He opted instead for Zuko's room, slipping through the doors before any of the servants were even up. He really didn't have any qualms about jacking off in Zuko's bed. Maybe that should have told him something about his own character, but he didn't question it. 

He propped his back against the cushions that had been stacked against the head board, and started fumbling with the ties of his pants instantly. Zuko didn't spend many nights here since he started sharing his old bed with Jet, and before Jet's arrival he hadn't even been in the country. The room was impersonal, and clean. It didn't even smell like the other boy.

But it was the other boy's and that's what counted. Despite the lack of olfactory evidence, Jet knew that Zuko had slept in this bed. He'd seen the prince do it. Honestly, that was all he needed. 

That first few days when they hadn't shared a bed, Zuko had probably sat right here in this exact spot and done the same thing. Jet thought about yesterday morning, matching the prince's rhythm, and imagined he was doing it now, stroking in time.

Zuko was in the other room still, but there was no question about what he was doing. If Jet focused he could pretend he felt the other boy's energy through the wall and the dozen or so feet between them. Maybe he really could. He didn't know. The thought turned him on regardless.

He came, not as hard as he had the morning before, but hard enough. It left him a bit winded as he floated back down. Fuck maybe being a firebender wasn't all bad. Having the sun be like a shot of pure adrenaline every morning did have its perks, he decided, doing his pants back up. 

They'd have to get dressed before they left. Sure there'd been at least a day Jet had stayed in Pajamas through everything, but if it wasn't normal he couldn't do it while actually trying to convince someone of something. Then they'd have to request a palanquin so they could be carried there. Zuko insisted that was the way things were done even if he didn't seem to keen on them, looking out the little door holes the whole time like he wanted to jump out as soon as possible. 

Fuck palace life and the traditions it held. Everything was so fucking complicated. He didn't even know how to dress in his own clothes. 

He ran back into Zuko in the hallway. The prince was in the midst of explaining to Na what he planned on wearing today.

"And what about your guest?" she asked when he'd finished. Jet listened to Zuko go through the list of clothes to put him in, not really hearing any of it. That's how they chose his clothes? Zuko'd been dressing him up like a little doll. 

That was, he struggled to find a way to describe the feeling, weird. It made sense. But still. still. Jet had been the leader before. Now Zuko had every power over him.

Na leaned into his room, and gave some thing a few hard yanks. "Good morning," he said to Jet. "Breakfast will be up shortly."

"Thanks," he told the man awkwardly but nothing was said about him and Zuko seeming to have switched bedrooms. he hadn't said anything about any of the bedroom shenanigans so far. Jet was starting to suspect he was overly fond of Zuko. 

Made sense. Zuko was strangely endearing. 

He skirted past Jet into the main room to do whatever it was she was supposed to do. 

"Hey," Jet said when they were alone.

Zuko hesitated. "Hey," he said back.

"Excited for our big trip?" Jet asked.

"I guess," Zuko replied. He wasn't selling that lie at all, but Jet let him have it with no more fun poking than a small chuckle at the other boy's expense. The prince glared at him a bit, but when wasn't he glaring?

"I am," Jet announced. 

"I'm glad," Zuko said in a way that said he was actually completely indifferent.

"It's like a date," Jet joked, leaning into the other boy's space. Zuko blushed right on his cue. For a second, Jet was standing on the deck of that ferry again. If he closed his eyes it was almost like nothing had changed at all. 

"I'm dating Mai," Zuko protested. 

"You know in the Earth Kingdom," Jet said softly, pressing further into Zuko's space, "It's customary to keep one of each."

Zuko swallowed, and stepped back from him. "One of each?" he asked.

"A lover of each gender," Jet explained. Zuko was backed against the wall now, face so red, eyes so wide. He was like a young priestess he blushed so hard. Fuck. Jet considered pinning the other boy as he looked from side to side. No use letting him run off.

"Your clothes are ready," Na interrupted. Jet grumbled, stepping back and away from the prince. Zuko looked a little relieved.

"Thank you, Na," he said, moving quickly away from Jet. 

Jet glared at the spot the prince had been. So close. He'd been so close. They'd kissed only two days ago. Zuko had tasted like fire, smoke, spicy sweets. It was all Jet really cared to ruminate on from those memories. Some of the things he'd seen then, he didn't want to remember at all.

Zuko stripped his sleep clothes off right there, grabbing his clothes out of the pile in Na's hands. "I'll dress myself," he said. "You see to Jet."

Jet frowned, stripping down himself. He watched Zuko dress himself as Na helped him into his own clothes. The prince made it seem so simple, but the reality of the complexities of what he was wearing astounded Jet. Zuko seemed to know how exactly to tug every knot so it looked just right, perfectly, and intricately folded over itself a thousand times.

Na did the ties on Jet's clothes differently, and he wondered if that was some sort of hidden status symbol he didn't understand. Maybe it was just a flare of personalization. 

"What kind of knot is that?" he asked compulsively as Na straightened out the points on his shoulders. 

"This?" Zuko asked. "I learned it on the ship." Personalization. He was so cute. Jet wanted to eat him, or squish him, or maybe punch him in the face again.

"Miss the navy much, sailor?" he teased. 

The blush that spread up Zuko's cheeks was particularly spectacular. Jet gave himself points in his head for that one. 

"Hey Na," he said then, grabbing the man's attention. He was at least ten years older than the both of them. He looked up at him curiously "Do you know what they say about sailors?" he asked.

His blush almost matched Zuko's. Like the prince, she managed to glare through it. "I'm sure I haven't," he said, but it was an obvious lie. Maybe no one in the palace could lie. Except Azula and her's that was. They had lying down pat.

"That's enough fooling around," Zuko snapped.

Breakfast was wheeled in through the door seconds later. Zuko fixed Jet with one last hard look as Na scampered off to help with the table. "Behave yourself," he warned.

Jet rolled his eyes.

"I mean it," the prince pressed. "No more running around while we're out of the palace."

"Whatever," Jet huffed.

"You need to mind me," Zuko told him.

"I'm sure."

"I am your prince whether you like it or not. You are here out of my generosity. I expect you to understand your place," the prince hissed.

"Power trip much?" Jet asked.

"Oh you're one to talk. My hero, commander of the Freedom Fighters," Zuko said sarcastically. He had a point. Jet glared at him, fire burning hot in his hands. He hated it when firebenders had points.

He was a firebender too. 

Jet grit his teeth hard. 

"Come eat breakfast," Zuko told him soon. "I'm," he paused, every muscle in his body tensing visibly. "Sorry I snapped at you." The forced apology seemed so odd it snapped Jet out of his mood instantly.

"Okay," he said, confused, and followed the prince to the breakfast table. He kept quiet through the meal, watching Zuko as he wolfed down a few bowls of some kind of soup. The porridge he had himself was over peppered still, but he was starting to get used to it.

Zuko tucked a small dagger into his belt as they walked out the door. Jet had done a brief amount of math in his head while they'd been preparing to leave the palace yesterday, and he knew it would take at least a fifteen minutes to get into the palanquin. 

Stupid traditions.

He missed the familiar weight of his armor as he waited, leaning up against a pillar outside the palace doors. He felt so out of place in the Fire Nation clothes Zuko had been putting him in. He'd worn sleeves before, and his boots had been soft leather instead of these hard things that bit at his toes in all the wrong ways. 

His belt was tighter now than he'd ever worn it. It synched at his waist and made him uncomfortable. There was no dip in it as it bowed under the tug of his shang gou. The wardrobe was expensive, softer than anything he'd ever touched before except for Zuko's hair and the sheets they slept on, but it wasn't his and he hated that. 

He felt naked. He probably looked funny too.

"You glare more than I do," Zuko observed, walking back over from where he'd been having a conversation with a steward or something. Jet wasn't sure on titles really.

He looked up at the other boy, trying to ease his face into something more presentable. "Course not, babe. You're the Prince of Pout," he joked. 

Zuko's face fell. "Don't call me that," he said. "They're bringing the palanquin around now. It'll just be a few more minutes."

"Everything hear takes nine years," Jet complained.

"You're exaggerating," Zuko snapped. 

"Yeah. It's a form of expression," Jet told him. He huffed at one of the fly away hairs that had fallen out of the almost topknot on his head. "If you don't like it maybe you should send me back to the Earth Kingdom."

"Maybe I should!" Zuko exploded. "You were nothing but trouble for me yesterday, and you're being nothing but trouble today!"

"You don't think that's what I want?" Jet asked. He rolled his teeth against each other softly, feeling the grind of bone on bone and wishing he had something to chew on. 

Zuko's rage was blown out of him like the wind stolen from a sail. He deflated rather spectacularly. "I'm not going to send you home," he said softly.

"Oh, wonderful, how reassuring. You're not going to listen to me telling you what I want. Classic firebender," Jet said. He was a firebender too and it was a low blow, but it was a blow that hit.

"We're going to see your teacher," Zuko said as if that made up for being imprisoned on enemy soil. Jet gave him an incredulous look, but before he could say anything, the palanquin was there.

It was less cramped with just the two of them. Faster too by margins but it was something. Jet wished he'd been allowed to walk. With everyone on foot this all would have been so much easier.

He joined Zuko in peering at the outside world for a bit before he got bored, and sprawled out over as much of the seat on his side of the little box he could. Zuko glared at him, and butted his knee up against Jet's. Jet butted back.

Zuko's glare got harsher, and he darted away from the little window, grabbing Jet by his shirt to haul him into an upright position, leaning across the little foot-well. 

"What are you doing?" the prince asked harshly, teeth bared in Jet's face.

"I'm bored," Jet told him.

Zuko's face was a ball of furry, so Jet tipped his head to the side a little and kissed him. It'd meant to be a peck, just pressing their lips together, but the moment he'd done it, Zuko tugged him further forward. The prince opened his mouth, and Jet followed his lead. 

Zuko was a good kisser. Li had been too. Jet could taste fire. It almost felt like there was real flame moving between them, out of Zuko's mouth, and into his.He moaned quietly around the other boy's tongue, gripping his elbow to hold him in place. No running this time. He kept running away and Jet knew that's not what he wanted. 

His free hand fell on the prince's knee, fingers digging into his thigh. The sound Zuko made as he pulled back, a sharp intake of breath, jarred him. The other boy was tense like a taught rope in the rigging of a ship or maybe a tree house village. Jet met wide golden eyes and saw the wet lips under them.

"Stop," Zuko said softly. It came out more of a request than a demand. The prince shook his hand where it gripped Jet's shirt, making it swing in the fabric uselessly. "Stop," he insisted.

"Why?" Jet asked.

Zuko gaped, mouth open and working around an excuse he didn't have. Jet watched the cognitive dissonance in his eyes. "I can't disappoint my father," he said softly. "I can't."

"Fuck your father," Jet hissed.

The look of guilt and shame on Zuko's face was something to be reckoned with. Jet pulled his hand from the prince's knee to touch his healthy cheek.

"He's a terrible person," Jet told him softly. "Look at what he did to you."

Zuko's face hardened again, the vulnerability suddenly gone, as if it had never been there at all. "I did that," he insisted.

Jet shook his head, pulling back. He didn't know what to say to make Zuko see. What could he say? He went with "You're wrong," pausing, "And you're wrong about being so scared of something so simple. You were kissing me just the other night, weren't you?"

Zuko bit his lip. "I'm not scared," Zuko told him, voice still hushed. "I've done this sort of stuff loads of times." Jet wondered how many times loads were. Had the prince counted those loads in loads spent? "It's just different now. I can't do that here."

"You want to," Jet argued. 

"Why does that matter?" Zuko asked.

"Because I do too," Jet told him.

The look on Zuko's face then, the way he glanced quickly down to Jet's crotch and then made eye contact, was fucking cock hungry. Jet was going to fuck him so good he'd go blind indefinitely. 

The footmen were lowering the palanquin. The curtains parted a bit, and a guard leaned in to tell them they'd arrived. Zuko didn't even look at the man, just held up a hand, and closed his eyes to tell him he was dismissed.

"I didn't want to have to do things while burning wood today," Zuko groused, adjusting his pants. Jet smirked at him. "Shut up and bite your own dick off," the prince hissed.

"Let's go," Jet responded, sliding out into the world again with ease. 

"Fuck you!" he heard from inside the palanquin. He made eye contact with a guard, arching an eyebrow and smirking.

The woman smiled back, understanding all over her face. Jet was struck by the absurdity for a moment of sharing a joke with a woman in Fire Nation armor, but she was glancing back at the palanquin, at the booted foot that was kicked through the curtains, and then looking at the other guards, drawing everyone in. There was an odd sense of community almost like being back in the forest again in that one moment.

It made Jet feel sick. He didn't know why. Maybe he was looking at the corpses he'd left behind him again. Was this how Zuko had felt in the Earth Kingdom, he wondered. Maybe that explained the haunted look on his face as Jet had explained the little he was willing to about his personal story.

The prince grabbed Jet's wrist and used that to haul himself out of the palanquin. "I'll have your first born child wrapped up in irons and dipped in lava," he threatened emptily. "Then I will eat its remains at my coronation feast," he added.

Jet rolled his eyes. The guards weren't exchanging amused glances anymore, but the one he'd looked at before caught his gaze again. He forced a smirk.

Zuko was leading them into the college by then, opening the doors, and strolling through the brilliant colors in the entry hall. He leaned over the reception desk to look at the woman sitting behind it. 

"We've come back to see Master Jiao-Long," he said. 

"Yes," she said, getting up and leading them again to the room they'd met the master in before. Zuko knocked, knuckles wrapping hard against the lacquered wood.

"Come in," Jiao-Long said from the other side. She sounded cold like a storm.

Jet's fire was jittering in this stomach, leaping and dancing erratically with excitement and nerves. 

Zuko opened the door and bowed low. Jet braced for the flame, for the sudden dryness to the air that would proceed it. It didn't come. The master was kneeling before a set of lit candles.

"I've been waiting for you," she said, her eyes sliding over to the both of them. "I've decided I will take the position."

The flame in Jet's belly exploded. He felt a few sparks run across his knuckles, dying on the air. "Yes!" he exclaimed, reaching for Zuko to shake him in celebration the way he would a comrade.

"On one condition," she added harshly. Jet felt the flames wilt away to ashes in an instant. His hand fell short of Zuko's arm before falling limply back to his side. 

"What is it?" Zuko asked.

"Your father does not interfere with what I teach," she said.

"I will be employing you, not him," Zuko told her.

"I'll start tomorrow then," she said. "I will be at the palace at dawn. We can discuss my salary then. I will do your class and then I will leave the grounds to come back to the college so that I may continue teaching my other students as well," she explained. "Do you have any questions?"

"No," Zuko said, but he sounded a bit unsure.

"Good. I will draw up a contract. You can read and sign it tomorrow while we're discussing the specifics of our agreement. Thank you. You can go now."

She waved her hand at them in a shooing motion. Jet only just managed to contain his excitement until the door was closed.

The excitement didn't die down over the ride back to the palace, and even once they were back in Zuko's rooms, it fluttered inside him like a monster tearing at his insides. Smiles were close on his face, and it was hard to still his hands and feet.

Zuko was wholly overwhelmed with him.

"How do I get you to calm down?" he asked desperately.

"Let's spar," Jet returned. "We haven't done that in a while. I miss my swords. 

It was still full daylight outside, so they found themselves in the Lord and Lady's garden again. Zuko insisted on doing things the traditional way and starting with a bow. Jet himself wasn't very fond of bowing at all. He played along only so much that he had to. 

The sound of steel on steel was comforting. Sparring was becoming so regular between them it was less of a competition and more of an exhibition. Jet knew he was showing off more than anything now, and Zuko matched him. 

In the forest, this was how Freedom Fighters had courted one another but Zuko had no way of knowing that. Still, it had always seemed that when two people liked each other they'd choose one another as sparring partners and the physical side of things would grow from the playful violence that made them strong in combat. 

Jet caught the other boy's arm, pulling him in, and pressing a quick kiss to his face when he left an opening in his defense. Zuko recoiled as if he'd been hit, stumbling on a rock and loosing his balance. He hit the ground with a soft "oomf," winching at the way his tailbone struck the ground cover.

"That's cheating," he claimed loudly, holding his hand out petulantly for Jet to help him up. He didn't bother to ask or even demand, but Jet saw no harm in humoring him.

He snuck another chaste peck on the cheek in, making Zuko blush a dark red, and cover his cheek with his hand. 

"It's not cheating," Jet told him softly. "I'm no cheater."

"You're such a liar," Zuko said, but he didn't make a move to pull away from where Jet held his hand.

Jet pushed forward until their arms were almost trapped between them. "I wanna fuck you so bad," he blurted quietly. He hadn't meant to, but the truth was he didn't mean to say half the things his internal monologue externalized. 

The color Zuko went then could have shamed every red pepper on the globe. Make the palace's upholstery and decor look positively pink. His mouth did that thing again where it worked openly on words Zuko wasn't properly finding.

"Don't say that here. Don't do that here," he whispered fervently. "My father's rooms are right there."

Jet cast a look over his shoulder. "I'm gonna fuck you up against that wall," he said.

Zuko's eyes were so wide. His jaw quivered a bit.

Jet shifted his dai into one hand so he could lay his thumb against the corner of the prince's mouth, fingers lacing around the back of his head. 

"I'll make you scream my name so loud your father will never forget it," he said.

Zuko swallowed hard, knocking Jet's hands away. Jet let him.

"Spirits," the other boy said, turning back around clumsily and leaning down to pick up his swords. "You never shut up," he complained, but Jet was sure he was "burning wood" now too.

Jet launched at him again. Steel flew. Zuko blocked him, stepped out and twisted, trying to sweep his legs. Jet moved his foot from the ground to the prince's back, using him as a spring board to bounce off of. He could have gone for a dangerous move easily here, threatened without a thought to tear Zuko's face off with the hooks of his swords, but these weren’t his swords.

Instead, he kicked dirt at the other boy harmlessly. It was a big difference from their first spar nights ago. Then, Jet had held back nothing. Zuko was still alive now only because they were evenly matched. Just like they'd been in the tea shop.

"Fuck you!" Zuko snarled, ripping himself off the ground and charging Jet quickly. Jet fell for a feint and caught a fist to the stomach. It winded him a moment.

he grinned at the other boy anyway. Zuko glared back. 

"You're cute," Jet told him.

"And you're infuriating!" Zuko yelled back.

"You like it," Jet accused. 

Another clash, a couple of sparks leaping between their blades not from the friction of steel on steel but instead from the heat of Zuko's building annoyance. Jet could feel the other boy's fire. He was only better when he was angry. Jet wanted to pin him down and kiss him, maybe roll their hips together. 

They'd been so close on the ferry, and so close the other night, and Jet needed a distraction for his brain to toy with in the midst of the enemy so that he didn't go crazy trying to fight them on all sides. 

The fact that Zuko was a firebender was now as much an attraction as it had been a deterrent. Jet felt like a moth, too stupid and too hopeless to keep itself from burning.

Zuko disarmed him halfway, tugging his sword out of his grip, and dropping his own swords to twist his wrist until he went down. The prince followed him, all heat and anger, pinning him to the ground. Jet felt adrenaline surge under his skin looking up at the sparks in the other boys mouth.

"God you're hot," he blurted. 

The sword that Zuko was pointing at him dipped a bit in the prince's grip. "What?" he asked.

"You're hot," Jet insisted, rolling with his mistakes again. 

Zuko blushed a brilliant shade, staggering backward and up off of him. Bashfully, the prince held a hand over his nose. Jet laughed at him.

"You wanna take this somewhere else?" he asked as he rolled to his feet. 

"I have a lecture," Zuko said gruffly. 

"Skip it," Jet argued.

Zuko actually seemed to be considering it. He wasn't so easy now as he had been on the ferry though. "We need to go," he insisted, picking up his dropped sword and turning back to the window they used to get out here. 

On the ferry, Jet had been in Li's pants almost the second they made eye contact. He'd had it in the bag. He kind of resented Zuko this hard to get act, but it made sense even if he hated it. 

The rest of the day passed by in sympathetic looks from the prince as Jet's knuckles got even more mangled for his bad manners or lack of worldliness. He hated it. When Lectures were finally over, he groused about his knuckles and about the food, and about Zuko being a dumb ass for bringing him here in the first place.

Zuko tolerated it with surprising grace all through dinner.

"Tomorrow Master Jiao-Long will be here," he reminded as he twisted little bites of cake off with his chopsticks. 

"Yeah," Jet said, remembering how excited he was for that. "I don't know if I'll be able to sleep," he said. 

"Maybe I should call Ty Lee and ask if she'd be willing to help you work through some frustrations," Zuko suggested.

Jet leveled a confused look at the other boy, and the prince pantomimed a blow job with his free hand, tongue pushing his cheek out as his fist moved before his lips. Jet grinned at him, clearly not the response Zuko'd been looking for with that joke. 

The prince blinked, looking as if he'd suddenly realized he was very lost. His eyes darted from Jet's eyes to his mouth and back. 

"Honestly I think you're better at that, Princess," Jet said quietly. Zuko stiffened visibly. His eyes were on the servants and guards attending now and he was bright pink. He should have known not to challenge such an experienced player to a game he'd hardly played.

The prince swallowed, and quickly stuffed another bite of cake in his mouth, pretending it was large enough to keep him from speaking as he chewed. Jet gave him the out, returning his attention to his own plate.

"Where are you sleeping tonight," he asked conversationally, knowing that his forwardness could easily scare the prince off. 

"In a bed," Zuko said, shoving more food in his mouth. 

"Which one?" Jet asked. 

Zuko swallowed his food, sitting up a bit more straight. "The one your mother shoved up her ass in order to make herself tight again after having you," he hissed.

"What does that even mean? You're gonna sleep in my dead mother's asshole? I'm very concerned, your Highness," Jet joked. 

Zuko turned a shade of violent red. "Yours," he snapped. "So you'd better not piss me off because it would be really easy to-"

"Roll over and stab me with your erection?" Jet suggested. 

Zuko's face. Zuko's face! Jet wished there was some way to immortalize this moment. He would have to tell Longshot and Smellerbee someday. It was so fucking perfect.

The prince pressed his lips into a thin, pursed line. "I'll kill you," he said very softly.

Jet leered at him. He stretched his legs out under the table, laying the outside edge of his foot along side the inner Edge of Zuko's. Slowly, he drew the toe of his boot along the arch of the other boy's shoe. Zuko was blushing too brightly to blush any harder, but he made this odd pouty face that was equal parts cute and ridiculous.

"Stop it," he demanded. 

"Make me," Jet offered back. 

"I'm going to bed!" Zuko announced, pushing the table back as he stood, and throwing his napkin down on his plate. There was powder on his shirt from the cake he'd been eating, Jet noticed as he watched the other boy duck into the hallway. The door to his borrowed bedroom opened and shut with a slam.

Jet didn't bother looking around at any of the attending staff. They would probably talk if he followed the prince, but he wanted to so badly. He didn't care. The Fire Lord probably wouldn't either. It took him a moment to move, but when he did, he did so quickly, throwing his own napkin over his plate as he stood and skirted around the table, the couches and chairs.

The room was dark beyond the door, Zuko not having bothered to turn on any lights. Jet held out a palm and fire sparked to life above his skin as easy as breathing.

Zuko came out of nowhere before Jet's eyes could adjust, hands on Jet's ears, pulling him forward into a kiss, tongue licking in deep, bringing that flame with it. Jet moaned into the other boy's mouth. He dropped the light to cup the prince's behind, needing to be closer.

"You're such an ass," Zuko hissed at him, pulling away for a moment. Jet slid his thigh between the other boy's thighs, using his hand to hold him in place as he ground up steadily. Any further words were cut off with a soft keening sound. 

"I don't think I compare to yours though," Jet said, giving his handful a soft squeeze. It made Zuko's breath come a little hard, a little faster. 

Fire made the air thick with it's need to be fed. it warmed everything they touched, their clothes, the air. Zuko thrust against his thigh, an arm winding around his neck. Jet leaned forward, bumping his nose against the other boy's in the dark so he could find his lips and kiss him again.

Fuck how was Zuko doing that? The licks of warmth coming out of his mouth almost tasted like heaven, too faint to really catch his tongue, but filled with some soft of alien sensation. Jet swallowed it all greedily. There was a heat in his stomach, growing by the second, one he knew well, but it had never been this intense before.

Zuko leaned into the kiss, opened his mouth, and Jet felt a path of cold drag up his throat as the heat was stolen back. The prince groaned.

"You taste like hell," he hissed.

"The fuck?" Jet wondered aloud before diving back in. Zuko made a noise, pulling the heat out of him again.

"Your fire," he whispered against Jet's mouth. "It's so fucking dirty." Jet shook his head a bit, confused. The Prince ground against him harder. "It's bloody and earthy and hot," he said quickly, words coming in pants.

Jet groaned, pushing Zuko up into a wall. The other boy was fumbling with the ties of his own shirt, legs spreading to support him in the new position. Jet kissed him again, pushing this time, forcing whatever heat that was down Zuko's throat. The prince moaned and he swallowed the sound.

"Fuck me," Zuko demanded. His shirt was sliding off his shoulders. "Fuck me now!"

"Do you have anything?" Jet asked. Zuko pulled the dagger out of his belt, unsheathing it in a quick motion. Jet saw its blade flash in the motes of light that drifted in through the cracks around the door and worried Zuko really was going to stab him before the knife itself was tossed aside, and the prince upended its sheath.

A small leather vial fell into his hand. Zuko tucked the top between his teeth, tugging his boots off, and then his pants. Jet fumbled with his own pants, But Zuko batted his hands away. When they fell away from Jet's hips, they pooled over the tops of his boots. Zuko yanked his underclothes down after them.

He was slicking his own hands, the oil bright in the low light. It was wet when he spread it out over Jet. They were doing this. This was happening.

Zuko leaned back into the wall, hitching a leg up so Jet could catch it under the knee. Jet used his free hand to guide himself in, watching what he could see of Zuko's face as the other boy's head fell back.

"Yes," he hissed as Jet slid in. 

He smelled so good. He smelled like ash and amber, and the crackling of hearth fire. He was so warm too. Inside him was like a boiler room. 

"Fuck," Jet answered. He set a fast pace, holding the other boy taught. "Fuck," he said again.

Zuko was moaning, quiet, always quiet. Jet wanted to make him scream. He hiked the prince's other leg up off the floor, bending him so he had a better angle. Zuko's voice hitched, climbing up almost a full octave.

"That!" he said, voice tight. "That! There! Oh fuck!"

Jet smirked at the victory, pulled away enough to watch Zuko's head fall back on the tapestry behind him. "You're so fucking hot," he hissed. Zuko whimpered. "I can feel you fucking burning."

The prince keened, his legs bouncing against Jet's hands. "More," he insisted, fingers almost burning where they pressed into Jet's skin. "More."

Jet leaned forward, and kissed him again, pushing heat through his mouth into Zuko's. Fingernails scrambled at his neck, dragging him in further, then Zuko's hand was gone, falling into his own lap.

Jet watched as the Prince jerked himself off, eyes locked on the head of the other boy's dick as it leaked. 

"Holy shit," he muttered. Zuko was good. Better than Ty Lee had been while she was drunk. Better than Li had been, allowed to take everything he needed.

"I'm close," the prince warned. The hand still on Jet's neck fluttered and spasmed. Jet made sure to keep up the pace, pound the fucker into the wall. "I'm gonna-" Zuko cut off. "Fuck!" he hissed. "Fuck!"

The crown prince of the Fire Nation was writhing in his arms, and Jet slammed into him as he came, relishing the sound he made as he did so. The high, drawn out moan, choked and rough as it was dragged out of him. 

Jet saw spunk splatter up Zuko's chest, and then he saw nothing. He bit into the muscle in Zuko's shoulder to quiet himself as he followed, pumping into the prince a few more times until he was emptied.

Zuko's hands were in his hair when his senses came back to him, holding his head gently. "Good," he said. "Put me down."

Jet stepped back to steady himself as he let the prince down. Zuko leaned heavily on the wall, hands firm on Jet's shoulders. He seemed steady in the moment before he tried to stand up, so Jet was baffled when the other boy's knees gave out a bit. 

"Woah," he warned, catching him. "You okay?"

Zuko almost smiled. "Yeah," he said. "Just useless." There was humor in his words that was usually absent during self derision.

Jet kicked off his boots and pants before he helped Zuko over to the bed. He curled around the other boy, dragging the covers up over them both.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found some asides from a few different POVs and most of them weren’t worth keeping but this one was kind of too cute so now you have _even more_ fluff in this already immensely fluffy chapter.

Jet woke up with Zuko's hair in his nose, and for a blissful moment, thought he was Smellerbee. He was disappointed when he opened his eyes, and saw the canopy over him though. The carved wood of the bed he lay in was dark and rich and nothing like the wood Jet had used to build their village in the tree tops. 

Then he remembered that Master Jiao-Long was probably there already. 

He sat up like he'd been electrocuted. "We're gonna be late!" He shouted, tumbling out of bed as Zuko whined. Jet was still wearing his shirt from yesterday, so he just stuffed his legs into his pants and tied them up hastily. His shoes followed with just as much grace and then he was tripping out the door.

"Breakfast isn't here yet," Na said quickly as Jet exploded into the hallway.

"I don't need to eat," Jet told him using the same tone he had used to brush a Freedom Fighter aside when they were making a reasonable argument he didn't want to hear.

He didn't give the man time to protest. "Have you heard anything about a Firebending master showing up?" he asked.

"I," Na said. "What?" He shook his head. "No. I just woke up."

Jet caught him by his upper arms. "Na, could you go ask about a Master Jiao-Long. Just ask whoever would have received her, or heard about her reception? She can't be left waiting. It's really important," he said softly.

Na nodded, looking a bit caught off guard by his sudden attention. "Yes," the man said.

Jet let his face fall into a broad grin. "Thanks," he said and almost hugged him like he would if he'd been one of his in the forest. He let him go instead, offering a little nod as Na made his way for the door. 

Breakfast got there while he was gone, and Zuko snuck from Jet's borrowed room into his own naked looking for clean clothes. Jet laughed at him even after the door had closed. He kept laughing when Zuko came back out fully dressed, and clearly in not the best mood. 

The prince picked himself a plate of pickled eggs. "Shut up," he said, sitting down across the table. 

"Where would you put your dick if my mouth was shut up all the time?" Jet asked nonchalantly, spooning honey into his porridge, and mixing a bit of egg in. 

Zuko made a sound across the table, china clicking against his chopsticks as he fumbled them a bit. "We haven't even-" he started when he doors opened, and Na entered, leading master Jiao-Long.

She regarded them coolly as she slid into the room. "Good morning, students," she said. "You are late to class."

Jet slammed his bowl down on the table, food completely forgotten in his rush to pick her brain for everything within it. He offered her a hasty and forced bow before stepping out around the table.

"I'm ready," he said. She gave him a quick once over before looking to Zuko.

"And you?" she asked.

Zuko was a soft shade of pink, eyes wide. "Yes," he said, standing up. "So much for breakfast," he added.

"Oh shut your cake hole," Jet groused at him. "You'll live."

Zuko sneered so Jet stuck his tongue out at the other boy.

"Where will we be conducting this lesson?" Jiao-Long interrupted.

Jet looked at Zuko. "Out in the garden," Zuko told her. "Follow me."

Zuko took them to the garden they'd trained with Buwei in. "Lovely," Jiao-Long said, observing her surroundings. Then she turned to them. "Sit," she said.

Jet followed the instruction instantly, watching Zuko mimic him. 

"The key to firebending is strength. Flame rests in the breath, and as such it is loudest when you shout. Every master the world over will tell you that strength is the most important thing in bending flame. If you do not have strength how can you hope to move the immovable?" 

She paused, drawing herself up to her full height before she sank to kneel with the both of them. 

"That will never be the truth though," she said. "In this world, women are confined from birth. We are born in swaddlings, and we grow into dresses that pinch at our sides to make us beautiful. We die as puppets with our strings cut. As a woman in our dear nation, one must have perfect control."

She pulled a small stack of papers from her sleeve, and then a writing brush, and then an ink pallet. 

"Read this," she instructed Zuko, handing it to him.

"In this vein, a ruler must have perfect control. A Firelord must never show what he is thinking, what strategies brew in his head. He must be of his faculties at all times, every word and movement premeditated.

"As a girl, I trained under master Jeong Jeong in the military, but that was no place for me. As someone's inferior I did not have full control over myself, and so I did not have full control over my fire. I asked permission, and I was granted leave of my duty. I have been teaching and developing my art ever since," she explained.

"Fire Taming has been practiced for centuries in forms of verrying complexity, but I have been told my students present the most perfect and life-like puppets.That's not why you wish to learn from me though, is it?" she asked, eyes sliding over to Jet.

Jet shook his head.

"You told me you didn't know you were a firebender," she recalled. "How is that possible?"

Jet stole a glance at Zuko. "I was born in the Earth Kingdom," he began. "I don't remember my home town, or my parents. They died when I was eight. I think anyway. It's all fuzzy. They were killed by firebenders, and I grew up hating everything from the Fire Nation. I raised an army of refugees, children my age and younger, a few older, and we built ourselves a village in the trees. We called ourselves the Freedom Fighters." He stopped, sighing heavily.

"I lead them to do some pretty terrible things. We killed a lot of people, and I honestly couldn't tell you if those people were innocent or not. under my orders, the Freedom Fighters destroyed a dam, and flooded a village called Gaipan. A lot of people could have died. Earth Kingdom citizens too. Not just Fire Nation soldiers. Luckily, the Avatar and his friends were there. They managed to evacuate the place before anyone got drowned. I still ruined hundreds of lives," he admitted. 

Saying it out loud made him feel sick. He could feel both Jiao-Long and Zuko looking at him, but he couldn't meet their eyes. He stared at his hands fisted on his thighs and kept talking. 

"After that I had to leave. The last two people who stood beside me went with me, and we traveled to Ba Sing Se. On the ferry, I met Zuko who was pretending to be a refugee," he paused, looking up at Zuko then. "Why were you pretending to be a refugee?" he asked.

"I was a banished criminal, and my sister was hunting me down. So in essence I was never pretending. It was uncle's idea to hide in Ba Sing Se," Zuko said.

"Right," Jet agreed. "Anyway, I met him and asked him to join us, but when we got to the city, I realized that he and his uncle were firebenders. I followed them for a week before I lost it and attacked Zuko in the tea shop where he worked. After that I got arrested by the Dai Li. They found out I knew the avatar somehow, and then brainwashed me so they could use me as bait to lure him into a trap. When I ran into the avatar and his friends again though, Katara- the water bender- healed my head. Something clicked, and my fire started burning again. It saved my life under Lake Laogai," he concluded.

Jiao-Long looked much more curious than she had before. "What's your name?" she asked.

"I call myself Jet," he told her.

"Do you remember what your parents called you?" she asked.

"No.” he said.

There was a silence. The master shifted. "So you're interested in my teaching because you think the control I offer will help you master your fear of fire," she observed.

"Yes," he said.

"My master feared fire," she told him. "Fear will not hold you back if you don't let it," she said. "You are a novice. But you are almost an adult. I've never trained anyone like you before. Most of the students who come to our college are life long lovers of the art of bending who wish to devote themselves to it body and soul. Zuko looks more like a student I would expect."

Jet looked at Zuko.

"I can tell just looking at him that he trains his bending every day. Your muscles are in all the wrong places for bending. You use swords, you climb trees. That makes sense," she told him. "I'm going to mold you into a different man," she said.

Jet's fire stirred, more unruly than ever, leaping up in his chest almost uncontrollable. He realized that he'd missed his morning wank, and maybe that was part of it.

"Have you signed the form?" she asked, turning back to Zuko. He was holding the paper, and the brush. The ink stone was set out beside him, freshly used. He handed it over to her and she smiled lightly at his signature.

"I will be here at dawn every morning. The two of you are to wake and prepare before then. I don't tolerate tardiness. I will give you a two hour class every day except for weekends."

Jet nodded. 

"If you wish to cancel a class you will tell me at least the day before. I won't show up at this place uselessly and be embarrassed."

"Understood," Zuko said.

"Then I will begin the lesson," she said.

They knelt in meditation for at least fifteen minutes, and the she handed them both leaves. "Keep the fire from reaching the edge," she said, burning a smoldering hole into the center of each.

Zuko groaned, but Jet didn't mind. He didn't know how long he sat there, but after a moment, the fire was as fascinating as his swords had ever been. He could focus on it the way he focused on them in training. If he listened hard, he could hear it whispering to him with strange sounds no living thing would ever be able to understand. He'd always thought he was imagining that before.

The embers only glowed where he let them, and he felt like a god controlling a forest fire, saving animals and people who lived there the way he'd wished he could as a child. He imagined he was stopping that house from burning. If only he'd been able to.

Had his parents known he was a bender? He they hoped maybe he could fight the fire back?

At the end of the lesson, the master collected Jet's leaf with a guarded smile. "You didn't let it burn," she said softly. It was all the praise he got, but he glowed inside because of it. 

"Drill your basic forms cold for another hour," she instructed, tucking Jet's leaf into her sleeve. "Then meditate for two. The lesson is over. I need to go back to my other students. You are both dismissed. I can walk myself out," she told them with great finality. And with that she left.

"I like her," Jet said when she was gone.

Zuko rolled his eyes. "You are so bizarre," he said.

They drilled forms until Jet thought his arms were going to fall off, muscles straining as they moved from one cold position to another. Zuko glided through it easily, correcting him when he made mistakes, honing his foot work. Then meditation was the most boring thing in the world. Jet didn't even have a leaf to focus on. 

Zuko breathed and his candles breathed and he didn't open his eyes to look or see but Jet knew he knew. He was kind of jealous of the easy control. He felt like it was still too easy for him to spin out at any second, take the wrong breath and make the flames eat the world.

By the time they made it to lectures Jet was exhausted. He spent most of them sleeping against Zuko's shoulder, and getting the tar taken out of his hands for it. The prince didn't seem to mind how close Jet stuck to him though, and so Jet didn't fret about it too hard.

They sparred at lunch, and before dinner to further kill Jet's already aching muscles. They juggled fire, and Zuko made him meditate more which Jet resented.

All he could think about was tomorrow's training as he laid down next to the prince. 

Zuko's eyes were bright in the dark the way they'd been on the ferry, almost glowing. "Do you like bending?" he asked, watching all of Jet's face at once.

Jet choked on words. "I don't know," he decided after moments of silence. 

"Mm," Zuko said back. "It's liberating. It feels powerful," the other boy told him. 

He watch Zuko's hand slip out from underneath the covers, thin fingers curling in the air before they touched Jet's forehead lightly. 

"Stop thinking about it," he suggested.

"It's not that easy," Jet responded.

"Sure it is. I spend most of my time not thinking about things. If I did it'd drive me crazy," Zuko told him.

"What kind of things do you not think about?" Jet asked. It was dark, and he was curious, and Zuko was gorgeous with his almost glowing eyes, the healthy side of his face mashed against the pillow. 

The prince's face flickered through a multitude of emotions. "My failures," he said. 

"I don't like thinking about those either," Jet admitted.

Zuko's fingers trailed lightly down his nose before pulling away. It left odd tickling sensations curling through his sinuses. He must have made a face because Zuko chuckled softly at him. 

Jet still hated himself a bit for thinking that Zuko was beautiful when he smiled. He didn't care though. Not really. Things were just so crazy. There was no ground here to stand on. It couldn't hurt to be so drawn to the only light there was, right? The only warmth.

Zuko was warm as Jet drew up closer. Their thighs and hips pressed lightly against each other through the thin layers of their sleeping clothes. 

Jet thought about kissing him. Maybe they could fuck like they had last night. But no. Instead, he fit Zuko's head under his chin. The prince's hair was soft. It slid over his fingers like brocade. 

"Distract me," he said into the dark.

Zuko made a strange noise, stiffened a bit. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Tell me something," Jet said. "Do you know any stories?"

"Uh," Zuko started, the sound stilted. "Yeah. There's the story about the dragon emperor," he said.

"Yeah?" Jet promised. "Tell me about it."

"Oh. Well a long long time ago, the dragon emperor was traveling the world, and he flew over the ocean where some dark water spirits lived. They lured him into the water, and tricked him by turning him into a mortal man. He washed up on a beach, and a young woman helped him back to her village. The dragon emperor tried to hunt the water spirit, and the woman loaned her boat to him and they went out in the water with nets. Finally, they caught the evil water spirit and dragged it up onto the deck of the ship. The dragon emperor fought with him valiantly, but even with his powerful bending he was no match for a spirit while bound to mortal form. As they fought, he tired but the spirit didn't, and the emperor weakened. He fell down on his knees, and right when the spirit was about to deliver the final blow, the woman who had been helping him jumped in the way."

The prince spoke as if he'd heard this story a thousand times. Jet imagined somone telling it to him when he was young.

"What happened?" Jet asked.

"There was a blast of light," Zuko continued. "The spirit was driven back into the water by the virtue of her sacrifice but it had pierced her through the heart. The dragon emperor went to her then, and cradled her. She told him that she was the dragon empress and she had loved him all her life. She said that she was glad to give her heart. The dragon emperor cried, and begged her not to go, offering his heart in return for her life. Just then, the power of their love undid the evil spell, turning him back into his true form. He gathered his empress up, and gave half his heart to her, making her immortal with him. Then they lived happily ever after," he finished.

"That's a good story," Jet said, sleep already pulling his eyes closed. 

"It was my mother's favorite," Zuko said. 

Jet hummed a response. His limbs were heavy, and Zuko was warm. He imagined the dragons curling around each other on the deck of a ship in cold wind and rain, keeping each other warm with their love.

What a sappy thought. It was nice though.

Interlude

One thing Zuko could say for all of this was that he never walked away without learning something. Azula taught him almost everything he knew. She was the foundation for who he was in a lot of ways. She'd taught him the painful lessons he would be retaught time and again through his life. She taught him what love felt like.

Zhao taught him that love wasn't the only reason for sex. Zhao taught him about dominance, and pain in ways even Azula had been too gentle, or perhaps to innocent, to touch.

Jee had taught him those first bits of kindness, gruff, and honest but soft when softness was needed. Jee had been so careful in trying to be patient with him. He had tried to teach Zuko restraint, and maybe the lessons had started sinking in before everything was lost. Just enough for Uncle to really be able set them in his skin.

Jet. Zuko had no idea what he was going to learn from Jet, but he was sure it'd be a lot more than whistling. Just like Jee tried to teach him a lot more than restraint. Drinking games, a few dances, all the songs he could think of, how to play the pipa. Jee had been a library wrapped up in a man.

Jet was a bit different though.

"I don't think I'm doing this right," Zuko said. 

"It's fine. Takes most people a while to get it," Jet told him. "Just do what I do," he instructed again, drawing his lips together. 

Chattering bird song, looping and unfamiliar, sprang out onto the air, lighting around Zuko's ears. Zuko frowned, pushed his mouth together like Jet had done, and blew a gust of soundless air in the other boy's face.

Jet laughed, scrunching his nose, and his eyes. "No. That's not how you do it at all," he said. "Press your tongue up against the back of your teeth so it makes a little swoop."

"What does that mean? A swoop?" Zuko asked.

Jet drew a finger through the air, trailing a little bit of fire behind it. Zuko could tell the other boy was becoming more and more enamored with his own bending ability the longer he had to get used to it. "You know, a swoop," he said, the dip he'd drawn fading quickly in the afternoon light.

Zuko made a frustrated noise at him, and tried once more. Nothing. Soundless air. 

Jet laughed at him. "You're such a dick," Zuko hissed.

"Hey," Jet said, forcing his face to sober, even when the laughter stayed in his eyes. "I know what I'm doing. Come here." He made a motion, long fingers curling in the air between them, and Zuko felt it tug on the heat around his body. 

Jet was learning all the little tricks Zuko threw at him faster than the prince had ever expected. 

Hesitantly, he shuffled forward a bit so that their knees brushed, and their feet knocked together dangling above the floor. Jet reached out slowly, always so careful to make it obvious he wasn't a real threat, and wrapped those fingers in Zuko's shirt. Their mouths touched, but Jet didn't press it. This wasn't a kiss.

Zuko could feel the shape Jet's mouth was and, obediently, he tried to mimic it. Jet's tongue darted out quick, tucking Zuko's back into his mouth a bit.

"There," he said, drawing back a little. "Remember that shape. Now blow."

Zuko's mouth made a strange harsh sound that wasn't quite a whistle but definitely was something.

"I told you!" Jet exploded as if Zuko had just managed to really create lightning, and he wasn't a failure who never kept up with his sister. Like Zuko had accomplished this without much time, or prodding, or instruction. That was all a lie. They'd been trying at this at least thirty minutes and this was the first sign of progress they'd gotten.

There was no lie in Jet's eyes though. Just excitement. Encouragement. And Zuko really didn't know how to take that.

"Keep up at that, and you'll be whistling all those old sailor sea shanties your big bear of a bunk buddy taught you in no time," the boy joked.

Zuko felt his face warm with embarrassment. "I didn't have a bunk buddy," he snapped quietly, lacking heat.

"Well you had someone," Jet leered. "And someone taught you really well."

Jet didn't know the half of it, Zuko thought. 

The other boy leaned back, bracing his hand on the rafter beneath him and tittered like a bird Zuko had never heard. Maybe the prince didn't know the half of it either.

"Who taught you?" he asked.

"To whistle? Birds," Jet told him.

"No, not that," Zuko said. 

Jet cocked and eyebrow at him. "Oh." he said. "Ooh!" He straightened up again, and pulled a foot up underneath himself so that he could rest his elbows on his leg. "People here, and there," he started, eyes far off with the look of remembering things.

"I guess I learned from strangers. It's how we made money a lot of the time."

Zuko blinked at him. "Isn't that a bit scandalous?" he asked.

Jet shrugged. "Not as scandalous as a Prince taking sailor dick like a tavern whore," he countered

Zuko felt himself blush, and hated it. "Oh fuck off," he replied.

Jet shrugged again. "Whatever," he said. 

"Isn't it hard work?" Zuko asked, ignoring the previous comment.

"Some people have a hard time," Jet answered. "Smellerbee had a really hard time with it. She felt like a fetish. I tried to help, tried to get her to stop forcing herself but she was as stubborn a rock child as ever was born."

"Yeah," Zuko said, thinking about the extra curve in Smellerbee's throat, and her hardened brow. He felt a kinship there for what she saw in the mirror every day. 

"I never had a problem with it though. I knew how to get myself out of a situation, and I taught all my fighters the same," Jet explained. "Why? What were your teachers like?"

Zuko shook his head. "I'm not saying."

"Fine," Jet said. “They’re never as important as the teachers who make you a fighter anyway.”

Zuko frowned down at the ground below them. “Uncle made me a fighter,” he said bitterly, “and I betrayed him.”

Jet’s hand was suddenly warm on the back of Zuko’s neck, pushing reassuring energy through his skin as waves of comforting heat. “Don’t let it be in vain then,” the other boy told him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m just rewriting a few of the later chapters and finishing off the loose ends so this will probably be a little shorter than expected but I should be able to actually finish it.

Master Jiao-Long was a wonderful teacher. Jet felt like he excelled under her. All he had to do was carry out the tasks she assigned, and he got stronger. Zuko griped at him, calling him "Azula The second.”

They learned how to make a few small puppets. Jet played with them in lectures, much to the teachers' horror as he made them flit over papers he couldn't read, leaving little scorch marks on desks. Zuko hardly bothered with putting him out anymore. He just let the screaming happen, enduring it with a quiet stoicism that told Jet he was just as bored with listening to what government structure had been like during the beginning of the war a hundred years ago.

Jet spent his free time tricking the prince into taking him with him on dates with Mai. Within a week, he'd talked Ty Lee into joining his hijinks. They slipped their escort of guards regularly, leading them on merry chases around market places and through stalls. 

Zuko was the only person trying who could ever catch Jet which was amazing to watch. The Prince panting, face flushed climbing a building in his beautiful embroidered brocade, inlaid stones on his sleeves scraping against wooden infrastructure, was something Jet would never forget. It made him feel strangely important. 

Much the same way he felt strangely important when Zuko followed him to bed at night. They kissed sometimes, touched less often. Mostly they just woke up every morning, and fucked their own hands laying side by side, legs tangled up in each other. It was nice. Low impact. 

Jet still managed to make the Prince blush by weaving blatant suggestion and proposition into everyday conversation, but the longer they spent together, the more it seemed Zuko realized Jet was all talk. Occasionally, the prince tried to throw innuendo back at him, match his jokes in crudeness, but Jet always won those little competitions.

It was Thursday night when Zuko ducked off for an audience with his father. They'd been in the Fire Nation about two weeks, and at that point everything had fallen into an unnaturally easy rhythm. Ozai didn't call on his son regularly. In fact, Jet barely saw him outside of the small performances he had them do for him so he could "gauge their growth."

The prince came back in a full blown huff, breathing harder than he should have, clearly pissed. 

"He's getting rid of us!" he exploded. Jet nearly dropped the sword he'd been servicing as he scrambled off the couch to his feet.

"What?" he asked.

"Father!" Zuko told him far too forcefully. Jet didn't internalize that though. He'd known the prince long enough to know that his rage wasn't personal or even slightly directed at him. "He's sending us away for the weekend to Ember Island while he holds council with his advisers! We should be there!"

"I shouldn't," Jet told him.

"Azula's being sent with us!" Zuko yelled, seemingly upset that Jet didn't use his clairvoyant powers to know exactly what he was talking about with full context despite not having been there when any of it was explained.

Jet arched an eyebrow at the other boy, watching him pace the room furiously. "He thinks we're children! He thinks we can't handle ourselves!"

"You know maybe you're putting words in his mouth," Jet suggested, hating that he was kind of taking the Firelord's side. He just needed Zuko to calm down.

"I'm not!" Zuko shouted. "Na, pack my bags!" 

Jet blinked as Zuko started rattling off the things he would need for the trip. Na scurried around to his rooms, and began quickly gathering things in a chest as Zuko continued to yell at him through the door.

The amount of gratefulness Jet held for not being born a Fire Nation servant was amazing. Zuko was giving the man a truly ridiculous list of items, and Jet watched as books and bookends, and odd nicknacks, a few weapons, and an entire collection of masks were tucked into his luggage. 

Fuck it. Zuko was going to have a fit. He'd probably unpack later, and take all the unnecessary bullshit out, but for now it was best to let him wind himself down.

"Should I pack?" Jet asked when Zuko paused in his hollering to think of what to say next. 

"You!" Zuko snapped, before seeming to realize himself. "I'll pack for you. Na, put some of Jet's clothes in there as well."

So they shared luggage. That wasn't boyfriend-like at all. Na shuffled out of Zuko's room and into Jet's, coming back out with a stack of the clothing Zuko had bought him since he arrived. The gifts were becoming a more and more frequent thing, and Jet got the feeling it was how Zuko had been taught to show affection.

He bought things for Mai like that. That was different though, Jet thought. Zuko and Mai were going to get married and rule the Fire Nation side by side, Jet was just an odd pet project. Not that he cared. 

Jet had been wishing he had someone rich to feed and clothe him since he knew what rich was. 

"Maybe it's not so bad to miss this war shit," Jet said.

"Maybe?" Zuko asked him incredulously. "What? No! This is terrible. My father already thinks it's a good idea to raze the entire Earth Kingdom! And that was just because he Azula twisted my words around in a simple way! No! He's gonna come up with something worse! Maybe if I'm there I can-"

Jet frowned. Wasn't that how Zuko had gotten burned? Speaking out in a war room? Sure he'd been feeding the Prince as much anti war sentiment as he could, and it hadn't really been hard to sway some of his ideals. Jet suspected that was Iroh's fault. He'd never expected to see the Dragon of the West as an anchor point for his resistance attempts, but here he was sleeping next to the prince and praising that old man's name.

Zuko's eyes were widening. He looked like he felt hopeless and lost. "Why can't I do anything?" he asked quietly. "This war was supposed to be a good thing."

Jet felt the frown on his face deepen. He didn’t see how the war ever could have possibly been meant as a good thing. He had every instinct to argue, to spit in Zuko’s face and stomp on his toes and tell him he was stupid if he’d ever bought into all this crap but he couldn’t. It would be a terrible case of biting the hand that fed him. "When are we leaving?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Tomorrow morning," the Prince said with unimaginable exasperation. He dragged his hands down over his face. "Right after training."

"She's gonna give us so much homework," Jet said. Zuko nodded with a frown. 

"I need something," he said quickly then. "We need to talk to Azula."

"What? Why?" Jet asked. Azula was a constant pain in the ass. She showed up when unwanted, and liked to play around with the remaining hold the Dai Li's brainwashing had on him. She'd made him eat really rotten food once, and he'd gotten sick enough to not quite jokingly ask if maybe Zuko would just kill him. This was not to mention the strange sexual side of her Jet liked to not think about at all. 

"I need to see her," Zuko said. "You can stay here if you want."

"Maybe I kinda do," Jet told him. 

"It's fine," Zuko said. He wasn't lying either, so Jet turned and sat back down on the couch. 

"Yeah," he said. "I'll just stay here, and play with my metal parts. If you're not back before dinner to spar I'll just drag out the meditation candles and try to get them to work right."

"Good," Zuko told him. 

Na sighed heavily when the prince was out the door. 

"Rough day?" Jet asked. The man flashed him a small smile as he made his way back to his bedroom, but didn't say anything. He was a quiet guy, and Jet didn't think he was that fond of caring for a commoner. Understandable probably. Jet was a menace.

He'd stolen some of Zuko's paints once when he was left alone, and painted the walls in a crude imitation of the trees in his forest. The fit Zuko threw probably shook the bedrock of the entire Fire Nation. Na had never really forgiven him. 

Later, though - and with drink in his belly, Zuko had admitted that the trees were actually quite good and proved Jet had been paying attention during tutelage. 

His swords winked up at him in the light, hissing his fears about what could happen to Zuko alone with Azula. It wasn't his deal, he told himself. Not his deal at all. Zuko could handle her, and it wasn't like he'd ever seemed to mind the shit she made him do that much.

It would be cool. 

Zuko didn't come back for dinner though. Jet forced himself not to dwell on it, staring into the flame on the candle before him as it moved with his breathing. He ended up eating alone, which didn't happen often really. Zuko hardly liked to leave Jet alone for more than a half hour most of the time. Because of the whole coloring on the walls thing mostly. 

Jet had been told more than once he was a huge nuisance. Still if everyone kept talking about him like he was a pet instead of a person, he may as well live up to the expectation.

The longer Zuko was gone, the more nervous Na seemed to get. He had the guards come in from the hallway and stand in the sitting room, watching Jet who waited until they were distracted, and slipped out the window into the gardens, hoping to train with his swords.

Someone was sitting on the lover's bench. Jet stopped and regarded them from his position. A man with long hair. He started a bit as he realized that was Ozai, dressed down in a simpler robe that the one he normally saw the Fire Lord wear during their evaluations. An instant feeling of hatred raged through him like a wild fire, almost intense enough to make him feel ill. He wanted nothing more than to kill the man. Right there and then. Which, he reminded himself would ruin all his plans. Cautiously, he moved to climb back through the window, but the man's eyes were already on him.

Jet couldn't feel his fire at this distance, but he got the feeling that his own fire had been what gave him away. He tried to smother it down as best he could as Ozai regarded him.

"Do you climb through windows often?" The Fire Lord asked.

"I actually prefer them to doors," Jet joked humorlessly. His mouth felt dry. He was imagining Zuko's face burning again, and it made him sick because he knew exactly what that would look like. But it was more than that. The singed ashes of his family home, of so many other children's homes, stared at him with hauntingly empty eyes.

Ozai moved minutely and that may have been a chuckle, but at this distance, Jet couldn't tell. "I don't think I've ever had the displeasure of meeting someone so poor as you before my son brought you home," the man told him.

Jet felt his hands tighten around the hilts of his swords. Zuko had told him his father was one of the most powerful firebenders in the world. Jet could feel how outclassed he was in his gut, but he'd killed so many firebenders. Maybe he'd be lucky. Maybe Ozai wouldn't see him coming.

The Firelord stood up, hands hidden in his sleeves. Jet cast around, holding his position rigid, not willing to shrink back. His pride wouldn't let it. He didn't care that this man was the Firelord. That meant nothing. Jet was a rebel. He was a Freedom Fighter.

"What are the swords for?" Ozai asked. He cocked his head, eying the sharp, polished steel curiously. Jet saw a ghastly mirror of Zuko in that gesture. It made his stomach roll nauseously. 

He didn't look away from the man. He wanted to say "killing firebenders", but he swallowed those words. "Fighting," he said instead.

Ozai gave him a condescending smirk. God he was king fucking douche bag. What had Zuko said he was that night he passed out drunk in his sister's lap? Father of the fuckboys? The Fuckdad?

"Aren't you a bender?" Fuckdad Ozai asked.

"Yeah," Jet said. 

"Then shouldn't you be able to defend yourself with bending?" he pushed.

"Nah," Jet deadpanned. "I'm more of a party trick kind of guy."

Ozai looked a bit disappointed. "Shame," he said. "You're a better bender than my son and all you do is party tricks. Says something about him, doesn't it?"

Rich people spoke in a maze of questions. Jet hated it. Wait- "In what world am I a better bender?" he asked.

"Well it's not hard," Ozai told him. "He's not exactly a prodigy by any stretch."

"Bullshit. Zuko is a great bender. He knew more than our last master. He's been in combat with multiple kinds of enemies. He has a good understanding of how to approach individual adversaries rather than just giving generic advice. I bet he’s seen far more combat than you with your little Agni Kais.”

"Oh?" Ozai asked. 

"You better believe he’d outlast you behind enemy lines with no advantage other than bending,” Jet spat. “Your son's a _great_ bender."

Ozai was smirking at him again. "But he's not a strong bender is he?" the Fuckdad countered.

Jet frowned in confusion. "What?" 

Ozai was flat out simpering at him now. "Without raw power, what's the point? Zuko’s skill make him useful as nothing more than fodder for enemy canons." he explained as if this were simple. "He’ll never be able to amount on the home front.”

"What does that matter? When has it ever been about amounting. What’s that matter? In the face of survival.”

"My dear boy," Ozai said. "That's all it's ever been about. Though I suppose you wouldn't know that. You've never been relevant in your tiny life."

"Fuck you, buddy," Jet retorted. 

Ozai cocked his head in the other direction, looking confused. It occurred to Jet that maybe no one had told him to fuck off to his face before. The man's eyebrows furrowed. "Such insolence," he stated, frowning. "No wonder my son has taken such a shining to you."

"You know what? I'm done having this conversation," Jet told him. 

Ozai crossed the space between them in a fe long strides, catching him by the tuft of his hair and pulled back had, hands so quick Jet hardly had time to react. "Shit!" He hissed as the man dragged him away from the window

"Someone ought to teach you some manners," Ozai said. 

Jet stumbled, bent backward awkwardly and twisted trying to keep his footing but Ozai did not stop dragging him. He couldn't see where the man was taking him, but it was definitely away from his exit. 

Sparks were starting up in his throat, angry and hot on his tongue. 

Ozai dragged him down to the ground, and pushed him head first into the little stream. Water rushing up into his mouth and nose, Jet planted his hands on the moss covered ground and tried to buck the man off. The mud was slippery. Ozai’s grip was unforgiving. Was this it? A firebender drowning him? He'd always thought he'd end up ashes not some bloated corpse.

His swords were in his hands, but he couldn't do anything with them. He hadn’t taken the chance to swipe at Ozai's legs as he was dragged for some reason. They were useless now too big and clunky in such close quarters at such an angle.

Sparks died in the water, drowning just like him. He could feel his fingers going cold. 

No, he thought. No. His hand flew up, wrapping around Ozai's wrist and trying to wrench at it. He managed to get a leg under himself, and he made a bid to pull away. Water sloshed up his shoulders and down the collar of his robe, and Jet watched fish swim panicked from the commotion. 

He thrashed, but Ozai's hold stayed fast. He could hear the man laughing he was sure. Jet hated him. He hated him. He'd kill this man. He would. 

His grip was loosing its strength though, he felt his fingers flounder. There was no air, and they were so cold. He couldn't bend. Black started creeping in on his vision, making the water plants and the dirt blur out of focus. 

How fitting, his brain offered, to die like you almost killed all those innocent people.

Then there was air on his face again. 

"There's no need for that sort of thing, father" Azula was saying. "Zuko doesn't keep such badly trained pets."

Jet sucked breath, feeling the air bring his heat back, his fire flickering back into life slowly. There was water pouring from his hair into his eyes. He couldn't see past it, but he looked around wildly. He needed to kill the Fire Nation. They were here. 

Delicate, cold little hands pressed into his shoulders, dragging his attention around. Azula's face swam into focus before him, strangely blank. 

"Jet," she said, voice oddly soft. When had she gotten there? "The Earth King Has Invited you to Lake Laogai."


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was condensed out of three so it’s longer. It covers the events from Ember Island and Jet’s presence doesn’t manage to change much at all so I used a lot of canon lines and then filled in around them. 🤷♂️

Zuko was yelling about something. Jet blinked blearily. He was lying on Zuko's bed, and Zuko sounded straight-panicked.

"There was nothing else I could do," Azula said, still strangly calm and steady. "Father would have finished him off, or at least done some serious damage. You really ought to teach him better than to mouth off."

"You still shouldn't have made him-"

"I did what I had to. If I hadn't been so merciful he might not be alive right now. You should be grateful," Azula hissed.

Jet coughed, and groaned.

"See? Your clay puppy is alive," Azula said instantly.

There was a rushing sound, and Zuko was in Jet's field of vision. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded instantaneously.

"It's good to see you too, hot stuff," Jet said. 

Zuko's face screwed up in anger. "What were you thinking?" he practically shrieked.

Jet winced at the sound. He was a little too fuzzy to remember thinking at all, or what had happened really. There had been Ozai. Water. 

"He was saying all this nasty shit about you," Jet recalled. Zuko deflated a bit.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't wanna repeat it," Jet told him. There had been so many Freedom Fighters who's parents didn't want them for whatever reason. Smellerbee. The Duke. Jet had been left for dead once or twice, not by his parents but still. No vulnerable person wanted to hear that the ones they relied on thought badly of them.

"Tell me," Zuko said. His fingers were over firm, and too warm on Jet's hand. The prince was so insistent he nearly climbed into Jet's lap trying to get the answer. 

Jet looked away from the other boy. "He called you weak. He said you were a weak bender and that you'd never amount to anything. I might have told him to go fuck himself," he admitted.

He heard Azula laugh. Zuko's face was nothing but the gaping wound his father had left on the side of it. Jet hated looking into his eyes then.

"That was stupid!” The Prince insisted.

“Think I didn’t notice?” Jet shot back.

Zuko's face pulled into a rueful grimace. 

"Alright, I'll leave you lovebirds to packing," Azula tittered. "We leave in the morning so you'll have to be quick about that little recovery of yours."

Jet propped himself up on his elbows and watched her leave. Zuko was blushing, and fuming under his skin, and Jet knew it. Because in Zuko's world Mai was the other bird not Jet. Funny how things went wrong sometimes and people got the wrong impression.

Jet didn't mind the impression though. Actually, he kind of- no. He didn't feel anything about it. He didn't feel anything about anything. The sooner he got Zuko to help him kill his father, the sooner he could go home. Home was all that mattered.

Maybe, he understood now why Zuko had turned on Ba Sing Se. Not that he forgave it. Part of him doubted he’d ever really forgive it. But he was starting, maybe, to get it. 

"Lie down and get some sleep," Zuko told him, pushing him back onto the bed. Jet realized he'd been stripped out of his shirt, and the wet mess of a thing had been hung over the window sill.

He eyed it as he lay down. Zuko threw the blanket over him and turned away. "Stay here while I pack," he said. "I'll make sure you're safe."

Jet had the strange feeling that they'd been in this position before. Or similar ones at least. He'd been somewhere metal then. Somewhere uncomfortable. There had been iron, and cold, and Zuko's face on the other side of bars, trying to coax him to eat, to sleep. 

"Alright," Jet told him, and he didn't feel too bad taking the order this time. Someday, he'd have Zuko following his rules, but not today. And honestly that didn't really matter. 

When Jet woke up, Zuko was sitting up next to him in the bed. The predawn light was filtering in through the windows, painting everything in soft blues.

"Get dressed," Zuko told him the moment he opened his eyes. "We need to see our master and tell her that we won't be training again for three days."

"Yeah," Jet said blearily. 

He pushed himself up off the bed, and shucked the pants he'd been wearing. Zuko was surprisingly helpful getting him dressed, but Jet was starting to not be so put off by the Prince's sometimes-doting. Part of him was almost beginning to take it for granted.

Jet didn't pay attention to breakfast. His brain only really started kicking in once they were with master Jiao-Long, and Zuko was explaining their sudden trip. 

"Shame," she said. "I was hoping to teach you a new form," she sighed. "I suppose it will have to wait.

Jet felt himself boil over on the inside. Maybe Zuko wasn't crazy for all the anger he had about this.

"Instead, I'll have you do drills, and focus on your control for our class. When we part I will not see you again for two days. As such, I expect you to drill forms for an hour each morning and meditate for an hour each night," she instructed. 

It wasn't an interesting class. She didn't tell them any theories, or teach them any puppets. She just had them hold a flame on each finger tip and keep them all steady at once. It was surprisingly hard work, but it was so dull Jet could have cut his arm off for entertainment. 

Zuko seemed to be of the same mindset. 

They bowed their goodbyes bone tired with their muscles still full of energy.

"Have a good trip," she told them, her face as placid as always.

"We will," Zuko said.

She offered that lie the faintest smile. "I'm sure," she replied. Then her eyes were on Jet. "Make sure not to get too distracted," she said. There was an edge in her voice.

Jet offered her a smile, but he was sure it didn't come out seeming sincere. "No way," he told her, but she glared knowingly. Jet had the attention span of a hungry hog-monkey.

"I'm sure," she said again. "I'll see you in two days time then," she added. Then she bowed, and turned to see herself out.

"We need to be down at the docks in about thirty minutes," Zuko said. "All of our things have been taken down."

"My swords?" Jet asked.

"Yeah. I packed them. It's fine. I've got it all handled."

Jet was sure he did. The palanquins were waiting for them outside the palace doors. So was Azula, and her entourage. 

"Zuzu!" she exclaimed as they stepped out to join them. "So good of you to join us. Kuang has been telling us the most interesting stories," she said in a way that told everyone just how interesting she really found it all.

"Lovely," Zuko said, casting a glance at the man that was standing with Mai and Ty Lee. Jet felt like he recognized him. He must have met him at some point during his haze. 

They all piled in for the ride, and Zuko leaned against Jet's side with the greatest annoyance anyone could muster trying to hide from their escort's attention. "Why couldn't he be in the other palanquin?" Jet heard the Prince mumble quietly into his shoulder.

At the docks, Kuang told them they would be staying at "Lo and Li's beach house." Jet didn't pay attention but the man had a lot to say about the history of the island as he looked around at the royal port. He knew he'd seen it before, but he hadn't wanted to then, and he'd been so out of it. Now it looked almost as grand as the palace.

The boat itself was a little wooden thing hitched up to some sort of aquatic mammal Jet had never seen. Kuang bid them farewell and Zuko groaned as they boarded it.

"This thing could catch fire," he complained.

"It's in the water. It'll be fine," Azula told him as they walked up the gang plank.

"What if we run through an oil slick?" he asked.

"What did you and your crew even do aboard the Yuan?" Azula responded. 

Zuko muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like "hunted the damn avatar." Jet laughed softly. 

It was a nice day. Hot and humid like no one could argue with, but the sun was shining, warming the fire in Jet's veins. There weren't many clouds either, and the ocean birds sang loudly. He'd never had much of a taste for the ocean but it was a sight better than Caldera. On the other side of it was home. 

Azula lead them up to an open air sitting area, and Zuko settled in on a bench next to Mai. Jet ignored them.

They were underway before long. He watched the horizon, hoping for a chance to see the island in the distance. After about an hour's time, it slowly slid into view. 

"I'm so excited to spend the weekend on Ember Island," Ty Lee said, tapping her toes on the deck. "It's gonna be great to hang out on the beach and do nothing."

"Doing nothing is a waste of time. We're being sent away on a forced vacation," Zuko snapped. "I feel like a child."

"Lighten up. So dad wants to meet with his advisers alone without anyone else around. Don't take it personally," Azula told him, clearly taking it personally. Jet smothered a laugh.

"Doesn't your family have a house on Ember Island?" Ty Lee asked then, seamlessly diverting the oncoming sibling argument they all saw brimming on the horizon of the current conversation course.

"We used to come every summer when we were kids," Azula answered.

Ty Lee smiled. "That must have been fun."

"That was a long time ago," Zuko said. Jet snickered softly to himself as he watched the coast slowly become detailed against the gentle waves.

"So dramatic," he said. 

Zuko caught him with a glare, but he didn't say anything. Clearly, he was in the mood to brood. Jet shared a look with Mai that told him she was just as fed up with the attitude.

A pair of identical old ladies were waiting for them when they pulled up to the dock. "Welcome to Ember Island, kids," they said in unison like that wasn't creepy at all.

Surprisingly no one else seemed to feel put off by it. They all seemed to be looking in disappointment at a house up the hill. Jet didn't get it.

"It smells like old lady in here," Zuko griped as Lo and Li lead them inside.

"Gee, I wonder why," Mai deadpanned back.

Jet busied looking for something to chew on. Some sort of writing brush maybe. He found a twig in a vase and stuck it between his teeth. He laughed at the gagging noise Zuko made when grandma and grandma stuck a pose together. 

Then they were being lead into the guest bedroom where there were four beds. One short, Jet noted as Ty Lee threw herself onto one of them.

"Ooh!" she exclaimed. "I love the seashell bedspread!"

"Are you kidding me? It looks like the beach threw up all over it," Mai told her.

"We're a bed short," one of the old women said. "Ozai didn't tell us Zuko would be bringing an _extra guest_," the other one finished for her. "We'll bring in extra blankets for you," they said in unison.

"Thanks," Jet told them, making himself at home on the couch.

They offered Zuko and Azula a few words. Something about keeping an open mind and understanding yourself. Old people bullshit. Seemed like all Fire Nation cooks just got looney like that after an age. Mushi had been like that too. All proverbs and archaic wisdom.

Jet laughed out loud for real when they ended it with an exclamation about hitting the beach and stripped their over clothes off. Mai was kind enough to shield Zuko's eyes, but that only made it more hilarious. Prince boy getting saved by his girlfriend.

The old ladies whooped their way out of the room with a final instruction to get their bathing clothes on.

"Our what?" Jet asked.

"Swim suits, shit stain," Azula told him. 

Zuko pulled their suitcase in from the hallway and dug through it. "Here," he said, tossing some clothes at Jet's head. "Put this on."

"Aren't we going swimming?" Jet asked.

"Yeah," Zuko said. 

Ty Lee was already naked and rummaging through her own luggage. 

"Why are we wearing clothes to go swimming?" Jet asked.

Azula huffed. "Don't tell me you dirty country bumpkins all swim naked," she said.

"Yeah," Jet told her.

"Typical."

"In the Fire Nation we wear swim suits," Zuko explained impatiently. "Put this one on."

Jet groaned, and glared as he adhered to the command. Stupid customs. Stupid traditions. Stupid clothes. Stupid house, beach. Fuck it stupid island.

The beach was filled with people. Before taking the journey to Ba Sing Se, Jet would have been able to say that he'd never seen so many people together in his life. Umbrellas and blankets were set up in the sand. Children built sand castles, and people ran around playing ball games. It was a mess of noisiness and energy.

Mai, Azula, and Zuko stood out from it all like sore thumbs with a propensity for jabbing folks in the eye. Even on the ferry the prince hadn't been so completely out of his element. It was hilarious to watch.

Azula kicked over a sand castle, terrifying a couple of kids, and securing them a spot all at once.

"Put these things out," Zuko said casually, handing a bag to Jet. 

"No.” Jet told him.

Zuko fixed him with a glare. "Don't be difficult," He said, shaking the bag urgently, trying to get Jet to take it.

"I said no. I ain't your fucking servant," Jet argued.

Zuko looked like he was going to press it, but Mai stopped him. "If you don't wanna do it so bad I'll handle it," she said, yanking the bag out of Zuko's hands.

She was about to start opening it when Ty Lee spoke up. "Don't worry about it, Mai," she said. "My friend will do it for us." She gestured to scrawny kid that had probably sprouted from the sand. 

He eagerly moved to comply to her wishes.

Jet groaned, flopping down in the sand. Clearly, Zuko was sitting with Mai. Jet hated it when she was around. There was nothing to do when she was around. 

"Bored?" Azula asked.

"Yeah," he told the sky.

"Me too," she said. "Look at Ty Lee over there with her new boyfriend, and my brother with Mai being awkward," she said, pointing at Zuko.

The prince seemed to be very upset with the shell he was holding. "Yeah," Jet agreed.

"This place sucks," She said.

"Yeah," Jet repeated. 

"Forget it!" Zuko yelled. Jet watched in amusement as he threw the shell angrily away.

"Doesn't look like the date's going so well," Jet said, chuckling. To his incredible surprise that earned him a laugh.

"My little brother's an idiot," she told him. "Mai's not good enough for him."

They watched together as Zuko got up and wandered away along the beach.

"This is going to be good," the Princess told him. "Sit with me." It was framed as a demand, but experience with Zuko told Jet it was an invitation. Instinct also told him it was an invitation that he shouldn't refuse. 

Reluctantly, he shifted onto her blanket, trying his best to keep the heat in their bodies to keep from mixing. After a few minutes, Zuko came back with a couple of ice cream cones. 

"This is going to be glorious," Azula said. 

Jet watched as Zuko sat back down. "I thought since it's so hot- here," he said, offering an ice cream cone to Mai. The ice cream promptly fell into her lap.

"Thanks," she said dully. "This is really refreshing."

Jet felt surreal sharing a laugh with the girl who burned Ba Sing Se. "This is boring," Azula announced then. She cast around, eyes landing on people tossing a ball around over a net.

"Hey beach bums. We're playing next," she said. "Ty Lee get over here now!"

Zuko stood up, ripping his shirt off dramatically. Jet would have been impressed if they were alone, but the giggling girls made that hard. He shared an eye roll with Mai.

"Are you coming?" the Prince asked.

"I don't know the rules," Jet told him. "And it looks like there are only four players on a team."

"It's okay," Mai said. "They'll just add another player on the other side."

Azula had secured their position as next on the field by then so it was really no use arguing.

"Take your shirt off," Zuko fussed, pulling it off for him when Jet wasn't fast enough. Jet felt Mai's eyes on them. This was the worst.

They gathered up on the playing field, and Azula pulled them into a huddle. "See that girl with the silly pig tails?" she asked. "When she runs toward the ball there's just the slightest hesitation of her left foot. I'm willing to bet a childhood injury has weakened her. Keep serving the ball to her left and we'll destroy her and the rest of her team. Dismissed!"

"Your sister scares me," Jet told Zuko as they took their positions. 

"I know. Don't let the ball hit the ground, and don't catch it. Don't let the net stop it either," Zuko said.

Azula served. The rules were simple, and it looked like the rest of Jet's team was good enough that he could sit back and not really worry about anything. The other team was too distracted by everyone else to really single him out anyway. 

It was odd suddenly being the normal one in the group. He'd used to be the person getting all the stares. Before Jet knew it, Azula had not only landed the deciding blow, she'd set the net on fire, and screamed something about never rising from the ashes of humiliation.

A true terror. "Well that was fun," she said then.

"I don't know if I'm comfortable sleeping in the same room as her," Jet commented. Zuko snickered at him.

"I'm having a party tonight, you should come by," Someone was saying. A couple of boys talking to Ty Lee. What a concept. 

"Sure. I love parties," Ty Lee chirped. 

"Your friend can come too," the one that hadn't spoken yet added.

"What about me and my brother? Aren't you going to invite us?" Azula asked.

Jet whistled low. "You'd better," he said. "She's a bomb shell." He mimed an explosion with his hand, the boys eying him cautiously and then eying her cautiously. 

"You don't know who we are, do you?" Azula asked.

"Don't you know who we are? We're Chan and Ruan-Jian," the first boy said.

"Yeah," the second one agreed.

Jet laughed and managed to catch Zuko before he set them both on fire.

"But fine, you're invited," Chan continued. "Just so you know though, the most important teenagers in the Fire Nation are gonna be at this party so," he paused. "Try and act normal."

"We'll do our best," Azula assured in a way that wasn't creepy at all.

Chan gave her a once over. "Are you bringing him too?" he asked, thrusting his chin in Jet's direction.

"Of course," Azula told him seamlessly. "He's my brother's keeper."

The two boys shared a look. "Okay," Chan said. "Cool." Jet got the feeling that it definitely was not cool, but didn't know exactly why. "Not gay or anything."

"Not gay or anything he says, standing next to his boyfriend," Jet said. It was reflex and the words were out of his mouth before he could think about it but he didn't regret them. Apparently it was just a Fire Nation thing to blush the same color as your very red clothes. 

Azula gave him another laugh. He couldn't see her face from where he was standing but he got the feeling she currently approved of him which was very odd.

"It's fine," Ty Lee cooed. "I think it's kind of hot."

Everyone who wasn't her, Chan or Ruan-Jian simultaneously rolled their eyes.

"I'm hungry," Jet said, looking for a way out of this dumb conversation.

"Me too," Azula agreed. Why was she so okay with him all of the sudden? "It's getting to be lunch time."

Azula picked the place where they ate, and Jet was surprised by just how okay Zuko was taking his little sister's orders like that. Chan and Ruan-Jian followed Ty Lee like lost puppies, jacking their own ego's loudly in her general direction.

Amazing.

They sat down all around a table and a waiter handed menus out. One for each person. Jet stared down at the words, and hissed through his teeth. "Hey, hot stuff," he tried, tugging on Zuko's elbow.

"I'm busy," the Prince snapped. The bad mood persisted clearly. 

"Whatever," Jet sighed, shoving the menu away from himself.

"You can't read can you?" Azula asked quietly. He turned and found her leaning into his space uncomfortably. Her cold fire licked at his and burned the air icy around her.

"Why do you care?" he responded, expecting her to mock him.

A knowing smirk stretched at her mouth. It made her look vicious and terrible like some sort of venomous snake. "I won't tell. Unless you upset me that is," she amended. "Share mine," she offered. "I'll read it for you."

She leaned up against his arm in an imitation of how Mai leaned against Zuko. Her skin was so chilled. That couldn't be right. He shot the Prince a frantic glance but Zuko wasn't paying attention. 

This was bad, he thought as Azula began reading him the menu and explaining the ingredients. He saw Chan shoot him a curious glance that slid to Azula and roved. Zuko still wasn't paying attention. He and Mai were doing their girlfriend boyfriend routine, actually seeming to kind of enjoy each other for once. 

Ruan-Jian looked jealous. Mostly, Jet assumed this was because Chan had already monopolized Ty Lee and Azula scared his penis.

"I'll have what Ty Lee's having," Jet told her, realizing all the information was getting tangled in his head and not making sense. 

"Why don't we just share a plate?" she asked.

How did you refuse Azula? She'd hurt him. She'd use her little trick and force him. And she'd saved his life yesterday, strangely enough. He almost felt a bit indebted. Not morally but obligatorily. "Uh, sure," he said, self preservation gripping his mind in an iron fist.

"Good," she tittered. Jet began to steel his taste buds for the pepper experience of a life time.

The waiter came buy, and orders were placed. Zuko ordered for himself and Mai. Azula ordered for her and Jet. Ty Lee managed to snub Chan out of ordering for her, but only just.

"So have you guys ever been to Ember Island before?" Ruan-Jian asked. Jet hated the way he talked. It made him want to stick his fist in the kid's face.

"We used to come every summer," Azula said. "Mai and Ty Lee are new though. Their parents don't have as much money."

"Oh so you guys are rich?" Chan joined the conversation.

"We make do," Azula said softly. 

"Make do," Jet parroted sarcastically.

"Do you disagree?" she asked him.

"No," Jet said. "I just think it's an understatement." The understatement of the century. “It’s like saying the war has a just cause.”

The table went quiet. Azula laughed. 

"So where are you from?" Chan asked him. 

Jet gave him a half shrug. "The colonies," he said. 

"Really? I heard those were really shitty," Ruan-Jian butted in.

"Oh yeah. They are," Jet agreed, crossing his arms, and leaning back in his chair. 

"How'd you end up in the Fatherland?" Chan pressed.

"Hot stuff over here kidnapped me during the fall of Ba Sing Se," Jet said.

Chan laughed. "Sure," he said. "You all were at Ba Sing Se."

"Yeah," Zuko said.

Chan looked around the table with a half blank face, taking inventory of all of them. They all stared back, five sets of unshakable, shell-shocked eyes. 

"My dad said there wasn't any real fighting in Ba Sing Se. The city just rolled over," Chan told them.

"It did," Azula agreed. "It was wonderful. You should have been there."

"You're fucking kidding me right?" Jet asked. "That is just about the third worst thing to have ever happened to me."

”Oh,” Azula said in mock disappointment. “I’m offended to hear you say it wasn’t the first. I did try _so_ hard to make it memorable for you.”

“Fuck yourself, Azula,” Jet told her.

Food arrived. Jet felt himself stiffen as the waiter reached over their heads to place a plate on the table.

"You guys are a little intense," Ruan-Jian said. 

Azula simpered, “It’s all just fun, right Jet?”

Jet fumed silently, not sure how even to address this sort of thing without causing Zuko to throw a shit fit.

"Azula Is so creative," Ty Lee cut in. "She comes up with all the pranks we play."

"Yeah,” Jet muttered too low for anyone but Azula to hear him, “Like raping the entire Earth Kingdom Fun little prank.”

Azula smiled. "I wear it with pride," she said. "Some people toil away for years on strategy but it’s almost as if it comes naturally to me. I see an opportunity and I take it. Call it Women’s intuition.”

“Cool,” Ruan-Jian said.

“Isn’t it?” Azula asked. “Father is certainly proud at least.”

Jet rolled his eyes at her and picked his chopsticks up with his left hand. Azula's eyes watched him as he took a bite and winced.

"Spicy," he complained. 

"Yes." She told him. "Welcome to the homeland."

She watched him eat like she watched a man lie. Suspicion sat center in her mind. 

"Aren't you right handed?" she asked.

"Both," he told her.

"Aw," she said, giving him a slight smirk. 

"I know," Zuko said suddenly. "He's a complete show off!"

"Oh shut-up Zuzu, you're just jealous of the talented people," Azula taunted.

Jet caught Zuko's eye as the Prince made to huff as big as he could, blowing his bangs out of his face. He thought about leering at the other boy, but the odd atmosphere kept him off it. Chan and Ruan-Jian’s eyes on them, watching, thinking spirits knew what.

Jet didn't want a fight. Especially not one that would put him on Ozai's radar again. He'd barely gotten out of there alive last go around. He satisfied himself by paying his attention to Azula instead. He could play at ignoring Zuko if Zuko was going to ignore him. That was easy. Easy as pie.

Azula was selfish enough to benefit him by eating all of the peppers for him. He just had to deal with the spice they'd lent the rest of everything else. It was a bit unnerving watching the terror twins, one on either side of him dip full spicy peppers in hot sauce and swallow them like snakes. 

Who the fuck did that? 

Lunch finished out with Chan casually hitting on Azula and leaving Ty Lee to Ruan-Jian. Azula allowed his flirtation, but continually turned to Jet again. Now he got the game though which calmed his nerves considerably.

Azula had a prize lined up in her sights and the prize was Chan. Made sense. Enough sense anyway. Chan was a good looking guy that was true. He was tall and built and he felt like a bender even if he didn't feel like the most accomplished bender. He was drivel compared to Ozai but then again comparing a seventeen year old boy to the Firelord was just about completely unfair.

Regardless, Chan was the goal and Jet was the diversion. Luring prey into a trap always necessitated that you had something to lure with. Jealousy was Azula's apple. Jet knew this game.

Jet could play this game well. Not only that, but he could spin it to his advantage too.

They made their way back to Lo and Li's beach house slowly, doddling along through open air stalls built like permanent festival booths. Chan and and Ruan-Jian won a few presents for Azula and Ty Lee, and Zuko tried to impress Mai with several trinkets he snagged from games he was surprisingly good at.

She turned him down again and again much to Jet's disapproval. If he'd been on the receiving end of that kind of treatment at least he'd be grateful.

By the time they got back in, the sun was setting, and Lo and Li were directing a couple of servants about the task of setting a low, outdoor table with dinner.

"Hello kids," they greeted in creepy unison. Jet hid behind the siblings of subjugation, trying to keep a wall between him and the twin grannies.

Once again, room was made for six people, and Jet made an odd seven. A plate had been squished in for Jet between two others. Azula took one, inviting him to sit next to her. He really didn't want to. Honestly, he'd have rather kissed a hog-monkey but there was Zuko sitting next to Mai.

Ty Lee sandwiched him in, and he looked across the table at the Prince blankly, trying to read Zuko's expression. It was like he'd suddenly turned to stone today. What was with him?

The meal began, and Azula dished Jet's plate for him which was oddly controlling but he didn't really mind because it meant he didn't have to do it. Of course with her keeping up this behavior, Jet was less and less sure that Azula's target was Chan. 

He caught Zuko looking between the two of them as if trying to put a puzzle together without ever actually picking up any of the pieces. 

"Why didn't you tell those guys who we were?" Zuko asked, a few moments after Jet had dropped eye contact.

"I guess I was intrigued. I'm so used to people worshiping us," she explained.

"They should," Ty Lee assured.

"Yes I know, and I love it," Azula agreed. "But for once, I just wanted to see how people would treat us f they didn't know who we were."

"Uh," Zuko said, pointing at Jet. "He knows who you are and still-"

"Oh Zuzu, Jet's not people," Azula told him. 

"Hey you watch it," Jet snapped, gesturing with his chopsticks. "I could put one of your eyes out with this. Make you match your brother."

The smirk she gave him was half fond half simper. He didn't really know what to make out of it. “Still,” she said, turning her attention back to Zuko, “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like if we were average just like everyone else?”

"Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate," one of the old ladies said prophetically.

"Ember Island reveals the true you," the other responded. Then they stood up together, and clapped their hands like they had before stripping down to their swimming suits. 

"To the party!" they cried in unison. 

Jet attempted to silently convey to Zuko just how panicked the weird ass Royal family was making him, but the Prince continued to be absorbed in Mai. Whatever. He deserved her. Tall dark and mopey. Always blank faced or scowling. They were perfect together. 

Lo and Li bustled them off into the house, telling them to pick out clothes. "Something radiant!" "Something Elegant!"

Zuko pulled their trunk out from under the bed he was using, set aside his and Jet’s dao, and began to pull out clothing. He dragged Jet over, and had him stand still while he held up article after article. 

It felt like being an actual doll.

"Is this more difficult than usual?" he asked when Zuko paused to study a particular shirt as he held it up to Jet's torso. 

"I just didn't expect to take you to a party," Zuko told him, dropping the shirt back into the trunk. "This'll do," he decided. 

Jet let himself be undressed, not really caring that there were three girls in the room. He was used to being naked in front of a crowd. They'd all bathed together in shifts in the river back in the forest, and they'd slept all in the same room.

Zuko let him put his own pants on thank god, but the shirt was more complicated even than the complicated things they'd had him wearing, and the prince didn't bother letting him try to figure it out. Jet didn't know what he thought of it. He felt very much the same in this as he had wearing the swimming suit. 

This was too much skin to be exposing. If someone were to attack, they could burn you or cut you easily. There was no looseness to it to disguise where the body lay within. 

Zuko got himself situated in a similar outfit, and Jet had to admit that looked good on him. Stupid and impractical clothes, but nice arms. Nice chest. Clearly there were reasons people wore these. 

Azula bustled them out the door with twenty minutes to spare, but the walk turned out to be just ten, so she forced them to stand on the front step for ten minutes before knocking, saying she refused to be anything other than perfectly punctual.

"Um," Chan said when he opened the door. "You're a little early. No one's here yet."

"I heard you telling someone you'd be partying from dusk 'til dawn. It's dusk, so we're here," Azula explained.

Jet hid his face behind his hand and sighed.

"But that's just an expression," Chan said with great exasperation.

"We are the perfect party guests. We arrive right on time because we are very punctual," Azula told him. 

Jet stifled a groan, but Chan let them in anyway. He was remarkably go with the flow honestly. He just let things happen and didn't question it. Unshakable really. Jet found it amusing because it was probably just that the other boy was stupid.

"Alright listen, my dad's an admiral. He has no idea I'm having this party so don't mess anything up," Chan said as he lead them into the house. It was big but not palace big, and Jet had seen two of those now so he wasn't impressed. 

Azula simpered. "That's a sharp outfit, Chan," she said suddenly. "Careful. You could puncture the hull of an empire class Fire Nation battleship, leaving thousands to drown at sea. Because it's so sharp."

"Um thanks," Chan said.

She really should have stuck with trying the jealousy angle that had been working, Jet thought. But then again, Chan wasn't really the guy she wanted to make jealous, was he?

Jet cast a look back at Zuko.

Ruan-Jian was was already there as well with his stupid hair, and he made some sort of off handed comment Jet didn't care about but boy did it set Zuko off. 

"Tchah! He thinks he's so great," the prince complained, completely within ear shot, making Jet's skin prickle with the knowledge that this was the wrong way to interact normally. "Well what do you think of him?" he pressed, turning to Mai.

Azula was getting to him.

"I don't have any opinion about him. I hardly know him." Mai told him.

"You like him, don't you?" Zuko pressed. 

Mai sighed and walked away, leaving Zuko to fix Ruan-Jian with a heated glare. 

Jet chose that moment to swoop in, and pluck the fruit before it fell back into the wrong hands. He secured an arm around Zuko's shoulders, dragging him off toward the least densely populated area.

"You know if you didn't say shit like that where people could hear you scavengers like Ruan-Jian wouldn't even think of going for your girl. Now you've given him ideas," Jet said. 

"I don't need you giving me advice about my love life, Jet," Zuko snapped.

Jet raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah," he said. "Okay. Sure." He turned, not looking at the other boy. He was glad to find Zuko didn't track him, but instead let him fall out of peripheral vision. A tiny sign of trust the other boy probably didn't even know he'd given.

"Your sister's really getting to you isn't she?" Jet asked after a moment's silence.

Zuko made an odd fizzing noise. "No," he lied. Jet patted him on the back. 

"It'll work out," he promised. "I'm not gonna fuck your sister."

Zuko relaxed a little under his hand, but he still insisted that wasn't what he was worried about. "I'm worried about Chan," he said.

"No you're not," Jet told him. "It's not gonna work out."

"How do you know?" Zuko asked.

"Because your sister's game is weak as hell," Jet explained. "Chan's more likely to do a sexual one eighty and fuck you."

Zuko stifled a snicker. "I don't know if it'd be a one eighty," he said, looking at Ruan-Jian. The two of them were standing next to each other, whispering and yeah that could have been total straight guy behavior but they were just both so machismo it was hard to believe. Also funnier to pretend.

"You should steal your sister's pull," Jet suggested.

"I'm here with Mai," Zuko pointed out a bit belligerently. He gestured towards the girl in question where she was talking to Ty Lee. Now that- that was totally a gay thing.

"You think she's not sucking as much clit as you do dick?" Jet asked. Zuko went red as a cherry.

"Don't say that out loud here!" he scolded.

Jet gave him a smirk, and knocked his foot up against the other boy's. "Go fuck Chan's brains out," he instructed. "It'll blow some steam. I can tell you right now though he's not as good as me," he added.

"I hate you," Zuko claimed.

"You don't," Jet told him.

They stood and watched as people brought out plates of food, and then as guests began to arrive and the girls began to mingle. They looked a couple of wall flowers.

Jet entertained himself by summoning little plumes of fire out over his fingers, delicately twisting them into shapes, seeing what he could make without instruction.

"I didn't have you pegged for a bender," Chan said, butting in suddenly. Jet looked up at him curiously.

"I get that a lot actually," he told the other boy.

"I don't know how," Zuko added. "I suspected it the second I saw you."

"Yeah but you're a slut," Jet said. Zuko glared. Chan ignored the comment.

"So who's your teacher?" the host asked. 

"Master Jiao-Long," Zuko told him.

Chan tried to stop himself laughing but failed. Jet watched him with raised eyebrows as he went though his spurts. "I've been training with master Buwei," he boasted. "He used to teach the Prince."

"Yeah until the Prince fired him for incompetence," Zuko said.

Jet gave that a long ooh, but Zuko just stiffened further, pushed himself off the wall, and gave them a very terse, "I'm leaving" before he went to find Mai.

"Tough cookie," Chan said, gesturing after him.

"Yeah," Jet agreed. "His dad burned his face off."

Chan blinked at him blankly, so Jet offered him a winning smile. "So what's your dad like?" he asked.

"He's a war hero," Chan said proudly.

Jet frowned, giving the boy an up and down. The fire in his hand stuttered. "I'm sure," Jet agreed.

"He fought at the South Pole. Those waterbenders were ruthless. He said they refused to surrender until there wasn’t a single one left standing," Chan explained.

Jet felt himself go rigid with rage. He could see Katara's face, hear her voice as she explained what happened to her mother. The image of her fingers at the pendant on her necklace. He hadn't been in love with her, but that didn't mean he hadn't loved her. She was one of his, and he loved all of the children who shared his blood through the war. The ones who'd lost everything. 

He had to force himself to snub the fire wrapped around his fingers.

"I have a friend from the Southern Water Tribe," Jet said softly. "The raiders destroyed her village, came into her home and dragged her mother out kicking and screaming."

Chan blinked at him blankly.

"Everyone's been lying to you your whole life," Jet told him. "You think about that, and you tell everybody how your dad's a hero."

"I," Chan said.

Jet held up a hand. "I'm not mad at you," he said. "I'm just telling you. Hey, where's all the dancing?"

"Dancing?" Chan asked.

"Yeah. It's a party."

"Chan," Azula said, approaching almost a bit cautiously. "I'm ready for a tour of the house." 

Chan being ever the good sport just shrugged, handed Jet his drink and lead her off. Azula balanced her drink on Jet's head as she walked away, leaving him alone. He scanned the room slowly, trying to pick out a familiar face in the crowd.

He saw Zuko at a food table, serving a plate, looking like he was about to recook everything until it was ash. Best not to bother, he decided, taking a sip of Chan's wonderfully alcoholic drink. Why hadn't he been expecting that?

He pulled Azula's cup off his head and finished the two beverages back to back. It made his fire burn hotter in his stomach but it was pleasant rather than worrisome.

Jet was just summoning another little flame to toy with when something shattered. 

"Zuko! What is wrong with you?" 

Oh shit, Jet thought, looking up through the crowd. There was a knot of people gathering by the foyer. All he caught of the following argument was Zuko yelling "BIG BLAH!" but it was kind of worth it for that.

Then Jet saw Chan run in, knees high like he'd been cast for a stage play and didn’t wanna loose his part. "Who broke my nana's vase?" he demanded comically.

Jet laughed softly at the whole thing. Go Zuko. "That's it, you're outta here!" the boy pronounced, pointing Zuko to the door.

"I was just leaving," Zuko bit haughtily. Jet pushed away from the wall in order to watch the other boy storm out the door.

"Have fun by yourself looser-boy!" Ruan-Jian called after the Prince as he walked. Jet set the seat of his pants on fire as he went to join Zuko outside. 

Zuko was fast on the sand, and Jet had no experience with it. Zuko also knew where he was going, and Jet did not. It was a struggle to keep up and keep sight of him in the dark, but Jet was a Freedom Fighter and he refused to be shaken.

The prince lead him to a giant house built up the side of a steep hill. It looked like a miniature version of the palace with it's golden gabled roofs. Zuko walked right up to the front doors and kicked them in.

Jet didn't know what the other boy was doing, but he did know that now was not the time to follow. Something was going on, something more complicated than Jet had understood. This was probably more than Azula. 

He waited outside, watching as Zuko disappeared.

It was a beautiful night. The humidity had died off with the day, but there was still enough heat in the air that the breeze didn't chill.

Eventually, Zuko came back into sight holding something, and sat down on the porch. Jet kept his distance, and watched until he heard footsteps on the grass.

"You followed him?" Azula asked.

"Yeah," Jet told her. 

Her icy hand patted against his bare shoulder. "Good dog," she said.

Jet watched as she went and collected Zuko, motioning for him to follow her back the way they'd all come. Zuko met his gaze for a moment as he realized he was there, and Jet felt like something was said in that instant, but he had no idea what it could have been. 

They walked back down to the beach where Mai and Ty Lee had found a natural seating arrangement made out of large flat rocks.

"Hey," Mai said as they passed her. 

Zuko stopped, turning around. "Where's your new boyfriend?" he asked. The wrong thing to say, but of course he pressed it, siting down next her, asking "are you cold?" and trying to wrap an arm around her. She shrugged him off. 

"I'm freezing!" Ty Lee said enthusiastically. 

Zuko smiled at her. "I'll make a fire," he said. "There's plenty of stuff to burn in there," he added, looking back up the hill at the house.

He recruited Jet to help him bring supplies down, a task Jet rose to with great enthusiasm. They gathered old portraits and likenesses of the Firelord, pulled furniture out of corners, and smashed bits of ornate wooden molding to pile it into kindling before setting it all on fire.

"What are you doing?" Ty Lee asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Zuko rebutted, arms crossed. 

Jet watched a painted version of Zuko's whole, childhood face get swallowed in the fire. “It’s cleansing or some shit,” he threw in, thinking how odd it was that he was bonding with the Fire Prince over torching his childhood the same way he’d watched his own go up in flames.

"But that’s a painting of his family," Ty Lee reasoned.

"You think I care?"

"I think you do," she said.

"You don't know me. So why don't you just mind your own business?" he asked, turning away.

She gave a sad little scoffing sound. "I know you," she said.

"No you don't!" Zuko retorted, turning on her. "You're stuck in your little Ty Lee world where everything's great all the time!"

"Zuko, leave her alone!" Mai scolded. Zuko ignored her, walking toward the surf.

"I'm so pretty! Look at me! I can walk on my hands! Woo!," he said, planting his hands in the sand, and standing upside down on them for a moment. He made eye contact with Ty Lee before falling onto his back. "Circus freak!" he added hurtfully.

It was a rather good impression of Azula, though Jet doubted it was intentional. His sister laughed, but Jet didn't see the humor 

"Yes I'm a circus freak," Ty Lee said. "Go ahead and laugh all you want. You wanna know why I joined the circus?"

"Here we go," Azula sighed as if she'd heard this a million times. Ty Lee ignored her.

"Do you have any idea what my home life was like, growing up with six sisters who look exactly like me? It was like I didn't even have my own name. I joined the circus because I was scared of spending the rest of my life as part of a matched set. At least I'm different now. So circus freak is a compliment!" she declared. But there were tears in her eyes.

She really reminded him of Smellerbee now. He could hear her screaming "Tranny's a compliment! At least you know I'm not a fucking boy!" in his head.

"Guess that explains why you need ten boyfriends too," Mai said. Jet actually did find that one funny.

"I'm sorry what?" Ty Lee asked, slamming her fists into her hips.

"Attention issues. You couldn't get enough attention when you were a kid, so you're trying to make up for it now," Mai explained. 

Ty Lee adopted a passive aggressive smile. "Wow! What's your excuse, Mai? You were an only child for fifteen years but even with all that attention your aura is this dingy, pasty gray-"

"I don't believe in auras," Mai interrupted. 

“What’s an Aura?” Jet asked but the group ignored him.

"Yeah, you don't believe in anything," Zuko accused.

"Ah well I'm sorry I can't be as high strung and crazy as the rest of you," she told him.

"I'm sorry too," he said. "I wish you would be high strung and crazy for once instead of keeping all your feelings bottled up inside. She just called your aura dingy! Are you gonna take that?"

“She takes it from you,” Jet through in. Zuko shot him a heated glare.

"What do you want from me?" Mai demanded, laying out against the rock she was sitting on languidly. "You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well it wasn't. I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted. As long as I behaved," she added. "And sat still. And didn't speak unless spoken to. My mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my dad's political career to think about."

"Well that's it then," Azula butted in. "You have a controlling mother who had cetain expectations and if you strayed from them you were shut down. That's why you're afraid to care about anything and why you can't express yourself," she observed.

"You want me to express myself?" Mai demanded, sitting back up again. "Leave me alone!" By the time she was shouting, she was standing, and she looked ready to punch someone in the face. 

"I like it when you express yourself," Zuko said, moving toward the girl.

She shrunk back from him. "Don't touch me! I'm still mad at you!" she told him, sitting back down. 

"My life hasn't been that easy either, Mai," he hissed.

"Whatever! That doesn't excuse the way you've been acting."

"Calm down you guys. This much negative energy is bad for your skin. You'll totally break out," Ty Lee said.

"Bad skin?" Zuko asked. "Normal teenagers worry about bad skin. I don't have that luxury. My father decided to teach me a permanent lesson on my face!" he said, pointing to the scar. 

A sick feeling settled over the group.

"Sorry, Zuko, I-" Ty Lee began but he cut her off.

"For so long I thought that if my dad accepted me I'd be happy. I'm back home now, my dad talks to me, Ha! he even thinks I'm a hero! Everything should be perfect right? I should be happy now but I'm not! I'm angrier than ever and I don't know why!"

"There's a simple question you need to answer then. Who are you angry at?" Azula asked.

"No one! I'm just angry!"

"Yeah," Mai said. "Who are you angry at, Zuko?"

"Everyone! I don't know!"

"Is it dad?" Azula asked.

"No. No," Zuko said softly. He looked lost and helpless. 

"Is it your uncle?" Ty Lee pressed.

"Me?" Azula tried.

"No! No. No! No!" Zuko said, still looking so confused an scared. Jet wanted to hold him the way he'd wanted to comfort Ty Lee. More than that. 

"Then who? Who are you angry at?" Mai demanded.

"Answer the question, Zuko," Azula told him.

"Talk to us," Ty Lee pleaded.

"Come on, answer the question," Mai insisted. Zuko looked like he was going to break. Jet had the instinct to stop them, but couldn't make himself

"I'm angry at myself!" Zuko yelled, throwing more flame into the fire, and sending a wall of crackling heat sky high. Jet felt a flutter in his chest, but managed to calm the rising panic. It was just Zuko.

He tuned the rest of the argument out, staring into the fire, watching it consume everything within it. When he broke back out of it, Mai and Zuko were kissing again.

Azula interrupted them with a slow clap. "Well, those were wonderful performances," she said.

"I guess you wouldn't understand would you Azula?" Zuko asked He hooked an arm around Mai protectively as he spoke. "Because your just so perfect," he finished. The sarcasm dripped off his words like spilt vinegar.

"Well yes I guess your right," Azula replied. "I don't have sob stories like all of you. I could sit here and complain how our mom liked Zuko more than me, but I don't really care," she said and it was clear she was lying. One of those rare times you could really tell she was bullshitting you. "My own mother thought I was a monster," she said, staring into the embers left in the fire pit. 

A silence lapsed then, everyone looking at her patiently.

"She was right of course but it still hurt," Azula said then cheerily.

“I think you’re all crazy,” Jet said then. Everyone’s faces turned to him. “Look at you,” he said. “You’re supposed to be friends but you treat each other like shit. You think I’ve ever talked to anyone I cared about like you people talk to each other? Not once! But here you all are, arguing like the monsters you are because that’s the only culture you have. Being shitty human beings.”

Another silence stretched out between them.

“You all say so much about how the war is just and good and meant to show everyone the glory of the Fire Nation but when it comes down to it, you,” he pointed at Zuko and Azula here, “Are the royal family. You exemplify your people and yet you act like this. You’re savages. You’re all completely insane. You want the whole world to look like this? Right now? Give me a break. If it wasn’t for this stupid war, maybe none of you would be so weird and messed up. If it wasn’t for your stupid rules maybe your heads wouldn’t be so screwed. None of you are fucking normal.”

“You say that like you’re normal,” Azula deadpanned.

“I would be,” he said, “If it wasn’t for this stupid fucking war. I’d be goddamn normal and I’d do normal things. I bet I wouldn’t know how to sword fight or pick locks or kill anyone. I’d probably have parents who gave some kind of shit about me and a house where I slept. But I didn’t get any of that because you all stole it from me! And none of you give a shit! You all think it’s so perfectly normal to just act like this! You watch a brother and a sister fuck like its recreation and no one says anything!”

"Maybe that is normal,” Azula argued.

“But the point is it’s not!” Jet shouted.

“but if we exemplify the nation then everything we do is-“

“No, Azula,” Zuko cut in. “Jet’s right. None of this is normal. All of it’s wrong and we just pretend like we’re happy with it when we’re not.”

“So you’re not happy with our country?” Azula demanded. “What are you going to do then? Run it yourself.”

Zuko shook his head. “No,” he argued. “I never want to be Fire Lord in my life. The more I think about it, the more I regret my birth. Not because I was born unlucky, I was but, what I truly regret is being born father’s son. His legacy is one I never want to be forced to continue.”

Jet stared at him then, face flickering in and out of the firelight. There was a feeling deep in his gut that part of him had been waiting for this. This moment here. Zuko opening up and showing his true colors, admitting that he was against his father’s actions. “I don’t think you will,” he said.

Azula scoffed. “You’re right about that at least. My brother would die in a ditch before father made him Fire Lord.”

They fell back into silence then, staring into the fire in unison.

"What Lo and Li said came true," Ty Lee told them. "The beach did help us learn about ourselves. I feel all smoothed. I'll always remember this."

"You know what would make this trip really memorable?" Azula asked then, standing up. "Ruining Chan's stupid party."

"I'm in," Zuko said before an argument could be brokered. "What do you say Jet?" 

"Well his father is a Fire Nation admiral," Jet said. 

Azula was beaming. 

They hurried back to Chan's house, stopping only to buy a couple bottles of plum wine to share while they walked. They waited on the porch steps while Azula knocked. 

"We've got some bad news, Chan," she said when he opened the door. 

"Party's over," Zuko announced. 

Jet grinned wide as they shouldered past the host, sweeping dishes and delicate things onto the floor, toppling decorations. He hadn't trashed something like this since the forest, and i\drunk as he was it was easy to imagine doing it along side his Freedom Fighters.

He whistled happy little signals no one would understand, ripping hangings off the walls. Ty Lee downed the chandeliers, and Mai cut up the wood paneling.

Azula started the fire but Jet helped. It was different being on the other side of the flames, he thought as they watched it burn. Chan sobbed in the sand next to them, panicked and child like.

"We didn't even kill his parents," Jet griped as they turned to leave.


	14. Chapter 14

Ty Lee giggled as they crept quietly back into the house. Mai joined her a bit, and that must have been the alcohol. Zuko looked sharp and angry, holding a small fire out in front of his face, but Jet knew he was just trying to concentrate on not stubbing a toe on furniture in the dark.

They dressed for bed in dim light and silence, sure to be quiet enough so as not to wake their hosts. And then they all tucked themselves into beds, Jet trying to lay his head down on the couch under the borrowed blankets Lo and Li had scrounged up for him. He lay there in the dark, listening to everyone’s breathing slowly even out, unable to follow them into sleep.

The ceiling was dim in the darkness, too bright to be the one in Zuko’s old bedroom at the palace, too consistent to be one of the shoddy rooves they made in the forest. Cicadas buzzing on the wind outside bothered his ears, too incessant and alien sounding for him to calm himself down enough for sleep. Waves lapped the shore delicately some few thousand yards away and foreign birds squawked all along their edges. The breeze coming through the window actually felt a little cold now that he was so far away from Zuko. How many nights had it been since they slept apart? He was loosing track of the days. He’d never counted days this way before Ba Sing Se and found difficulty keeping track. He’d been here at least two weeks. And Zuko had been close by his side even longer than that.

That was the thoughts that resigned him to it. He threw off his blankets and quickly closed the small space separating the couch he was on from Zuko’s bed, sinking onto the thin mattress behind the Prince. Without hesitation, buried his face in the other boy's hair, tugging their bodies flush. It was comfortable. Tangled up with another person like this, he could close his eyes and hear the wind in the trees, feel the dark night dew settling on his skin. The cicadas and night birds of his childhood filtered into his ears, and he could almost hear Smellerbee, Longshot, breathing in sleep nearby.

Zuko could have been in the forest, he thought, and then the thought he'd like to take the other boy there once he'd learned to properly follow orders.

He woke to a pressure on his side. Something hard grinding against his hip bone, weight shifting consistently back and forth in the dark. Apparently, it had shoved him part way off the bed, so that his arm lay hanging at an odd angle, but pinned him down so they he was unable to fall.

“Wha?” He asked as the sound of quiet but quickened breathing materialized out of his sleep-haze.

Blinking upward, it seemed a shape above him slowly came into focus, undefined at first but slowly sharpening at the edges until it was obviously a girl. 

Azula sat above them both, legs spread over Zuko, bending over him so that their breath hissed sparks into each other’s faces. They were fucking. Obviously fucking. The soft slap of flesh told Jet she’d taken it down to the root.

He froze, unsure what to do or think. No one else seemed to be awake for this and part of him wished he could have slept through it too but he hadn’t given himself the luxury when he snuck into Zuko’s bed. It was as he was thinking of a way to sneak back out that Azula’s eyes slid onto him, almost glowing in the dark. 

“You want to watch?” She hissed.

Jet shook his head, ‘no,’ and she made a soft, disappointed sound. 

“Well Zuzu wants you to,” she insisted. 

“This is fucked up,” Jet told her firmly, hearing Zuko’s breathing hitch hard on the words.

“But he likes it that way,” Azula assured him needlessly. “He wants you to think poorly of him. Don’t you, Zuzu.”

Zuko gave a muffled response, face hidden in his sister’s breasts.

“Let me go,” Jet argued, feeling himself reluctantly respond to the situation. 

“Just a moment,” Azula said, her voice tighter. 

She reached a clawed hand out and laid it across his throat, fingernails biting in behind his jugular, and instantly he moved to rip it off with the hand she hadn’t pinned beneath her weight but she was firm, insistent.

“I’ve got your pet,” she hissed venomously into Zuko’s ear. “I can feel his fire sputtering inside him.”

Zuko gave a muffled groan.

“He thinks you’re disgusting,” she assured him, drawing out a whine to match, “It only makes him want you more,” she assured and Jet felt it more than heard it, muffled as Zuko was buried in his little sister’s chest.

The Prince’s body stiffened and shuddered, the fire inside him almost shaking as orgasm pushed out of him and up into her.

Azula made an odd, satisfied noise before seamlessly pulling herself out of bed, over Jet, likely leaving wet trails along the blanket as she went.

The silence was complete after the movement was over. They lay there side by side, neither one of them brave enough to move, staring mortified at the ceiling, Jet trying to ignore the obvious erection he now awkwardly wore, Zuko thinking spirits knew what.

Jet only knew one thing. Neither one of them would be getting back to sleep after the mortification of it. 

“Tie your pants up,” Jet hissed when the cicadas had seemed to reach fever pitch in their quiet refusal to move forward from that terrible point where they now stood.

Without saying anything, Zuko followed the order.

The patios, and balconies ran all 'round the house with their own sets of stairs and elaborations making it possible to reach the roof without ever stepping foot inside. Jet took them there, not really paying attention to his destination so much as seeing how far the walk room went.

Unlike back home, the rooves here were sloped and gabled, meeting in neat peaks above rooms, with frillery, and guiding on their fringes. Jet found a place to stand on the very corner of the main roof, bare feet cradled by the sudden flat area just before the edge sloped back up.

From there he could look down and see the beach on one side, water fading away into forever with small islands on the horizon, and the town on the other, cobbled stone and wooden houses paving the landscape.

Zuko clambered up after him, and dropped into a casual sprawl. He looked like he'd probably spent most of his childhood on rooves like this.

“Your sister’s crazy,” Jet said resolutely. 

Zuko gave him a heavy sigh. “I know,” he answered.

“You need to stop fucking her, man,” Jet insisted.

“I know.”

The waves hushed along the beach and Jet watched the shorebirds dance with them. “She’s been so weird since we got here,” Zuko was saying. “I think maybe she’s jealous.”

"Does she have a problem with you and Mai dating?"

"She sort of set it up?" Zuko said, sounding unsure of himself. "I don't know, she's crazy."

“All of this is kind of crazy,” Jet said. “Half of me feels like a normal teenager and the rest feels like a lie. I know all of you feel like you’re- I don’t know- opening up your hearts on this little trip but I’ve never felt more fake.”

“What do you mean?” Zuko asked.

“I think we need to talk,” Jet said.

Zuko rolled his lips together, glaring down at the deck of the house beneath them. “Yeah,” he said, “I think we do.

“I’m gonna be really honest about something,” Jet said, “I almost like you. No matter how much I wanna hate you, you’re the kind of person I might even call a friend.” Zuko was staring at him with a kind of awe. “But I can’t do that either because it doesn’t feel like I can trust you. I see you all buddy buddy with your Fire Nation girlfriend and frendlying up with your sister’s Cervix or craving daddy’s approval. How do I know you’re not just another Fire Nation dagger in my back?”

“I,” Zuko started but he paused abruptly, “Need to tell you something.”

“What?” Jet asked impatiently.

“It’s just,” Zuko stuttered, milled his words, and then all at once it came out in a single breath, “I don’t think the Avatar is dead.”

“What?” Jet asked.

Night air tugged at Zuko’s hair as the Prince squinted down toward the beach. “Azula let me take the credit,” He said.

“Yeah I noticed.”

Zuko shook his head. “She said she was just being nice. Letting me come home. But I think she’s got an ulterior motive.”

The wind shifted, tugging the Prince’s hair back the other way. Jet thought Azula always seemed to have an ulterior motive. He just couldn’t figure out exactly what it was with Zuko.

“So Aang’s alive,” Jet said, and the words felt almost magical on the tip of his tongue.

“And Azula doesn’t want to take credit for the failure,” Zuko elaborated. “She just wants to have her fun in the meantime,” this addition came bitterly, as if saying it out loud was almost as painful as knowing it.

“What was that thing you were saying right before we left?” Jet asked, “About the Fire Lord wanting to destroy the Earth Kingdom.”

“Obliterate,” Zuko said hauntingly.

Jet felt the reality of that settle in his gut. Zuko had never lied to him. Not convincingly at least.

“I think Azula’s planning something,” the Prince continued. “Mai keeps making illusions. I need to spend some time alone with her, get some more information.”

“What kind of information would Mai have?” Jet asked.

“All sorts,” Zuko admitted. “Azula trusts her and Ty Lee implicitly with a good deal of her secrets. Not everything. She doesn’t tell anyone everything. But it’s more than likely she’s discussed war plans with them. She treats them like her own little miniature counsel.”

“So you cozy up to the girlfriend-“

“Something like that,” Zuko agreed.

“Should I be trying to pick Ty Lee’s brains?” Jet asked.

“Maybe,” Zuko said. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m going to do yet. I just lnow I can’t let this happen.”

They sat there a moment, looking at each other, Jet trying to size Zuko up again. Really get a feel for him. His Freedom Fighter. His chance out of here. “What are you willing to do to stop it?” He asked.

“Anything,” Zuko said.

It happened almost impuslively. Jet reached out as fast as he might have to end a life and siezed Zuko by the front of his clothes, slamming his mouth into the other boy’s so that Zuko nearly lost his balance. There was a muffled protest before the other boy gave into it, let Jet shove his tongue into his mouth and lick along the lines of his lips.

“Help me kill your father,” he demanded, lips wet as he pulled back.

Zuko shivered. “I can’t,” he said.

Jet pressed their lips back together breifly, chastely. “Think about it,” he said. As if Patricide were the sort of thing to sleep on and imporbibly Zuko nodded his head ‘yes.’

Something felt like it burst in Jet’s chest. Probably something simple like hope. He was going to do this. They were going to do this. It would be real.

“I don’t want to go back inside tonight,” Jet admitted. “Those creepy grannies scare me and your sister is off the fucking wall. I don’t want anything to do with her.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuko said. “Maybe we could sleep on the porch?”

Jet nodded. They made their way back down onto the porch and bedded down back to front, knees hooked together, Jet’s arms around Zuko’s waist on the wood floor and they slept like that, twin fires burning side by side until dawn.

This time he woke to the light in his eyes and the feeling of Zuko shifting gently against his morning wood. 

“Don’t hump me,” the Prince snapped at him, pushing a warm hand into his face. “We need to get inside. I have to go to the bathroom.”

“Can’t you just take care of that here?” Jet asked, pillowing his head on his arm, “I could help you.”

Zuko’s face went pink, “There’s not enough privacy,” he insisted, pushing up to his feet.

They snuck inside through the back door and up along the hallway to the bathroom and Zuko rushed in, hurrying to shut the door behind him, which resulted in a scuffle as Jet had no intentions of being kept out, one he would have won too if the demon grannies hadn’t appeared side by side at a doorway suddenly and stared at them with owlish eyes before ghosting off. Just enough of a distraction for Zuko to be able to slam and lock the door in his face.

Jet stared blankly at the impassive wood before resigning himself. Down the hall, he could hear Lo and Li talking. If he focused-

"-odd boy," one of them was saying.

"Expected of someone Zuko chose though," the other answered.

"Wonder what his interest is."

"Well I've heard rumors about the navy."

They both tittered laughter. Jet crept a bit farther down the hallway to get a better ear on them.

"I bet that's a relationship."

"You know how boys are."

"I do."

He leaned his head back against the wall.

"Ozai would have a snit."

"Good thing Zuko's so sneaky."

"The real problem would be Azula."

"She never did see the benefit in keeping others' secrets."

"Maybe Zuko would live through that fit."

"But his friend wouldn't."

"He seems nice enough."

"It is a shame."

Jet buried his teeth in his bottom lip. Ozai would fry him instantly. He tried to think about ways to shield against fire, but he wasn't good enough yet. It was just like being in the forest, he told himself. It was just like predicting where the next fireball would be. Ozai wasn't really anything special.

Maybe that asshole called himself the best firebender in the world, but Jet would show him up easy. He'd just keep training.

"Do you think anyone's even suspected?" the first twin asked.

"No one but Iroh that's positive," the other told her.

"I've never seen anyone think odd of the prince," the first remarked.

"But he was so very fond of Lu Ten as a child."

"Ha!" the second twin laughed. "I remember how he used to cry when his sister said she would marry the Prince and not her brother."

"It's a surprise no one saw this coming."

"More of a surprise that no one's noticed now that it's here."

"Well he is very close to that girlfriend of his," the first twin suggested.

"Maybe the Prince is just greedy."

"With a sister like that I'd be hungry for attention."

"Good thing we got attention from each other."

They laughed again, the sound light and airy and ancient. Jet was about to move closer again when the bathroom door opened behind him.

"What are you doing?" Zuko asked.

Jet straightened up instantly, standing away from the wall. "Looking at this wall art," he said easily, Voice pitched low enough that hopefully the ghastly grannies wouldn't know he'd been eavesdropping.

Zuko glared at him. "That bathroom's free," he said, indicating the door behind him.

"Thanks," Jet said. "You wanna spar before breakfast?"

The prince looked like he'd been caught off guard. "We forgot to do our work yesterday," he said as if he was just realizing.

"Yeah I noticed," Jet said.

"Sparring would be good," Zuko said. "If we slack off too much she'll know."

Jet flashed a wide smile at the other boy before darting into the bathroom. Everything had taken so long, and been so distracting that his morning wood had already burned off. Peeing was a relief like no other after all the drinking they'd done last night. It was amazing that he wasn't hungover. 

He found Zuko back in the bedroom, hunched over their trunk, digging through clothes. "I'm thinking I should wear red today," Jet joked, looking in at the sea of red monotone. The prince chuckled.

"Are you sure?" he asked. "You could wear white or gold. Black if you're adventurous."

"The thing that's funny about that is like- you fuckers don't even wear any other colors," Jet told him. 

"Some people wear pink," Zuko supplied. 

Jet snickered at him as he pulled out one outfit and then another. 

"Do you think you can figure out how to put this on yourself, or do I need to help you with it?" the Prince asked.

"I never don't need help," Jet boasted. Zuko rolled his eyes again. Jet was going to have to work out a point system for this. 1 point for an eye roll 2 points for a blush. 10 points if he got Zuko to kiss him. Anything more and he won. Worked well enough. "You should undress me."

Zuko blushed and Jet started a point tally in his head. The Prince glanced to his sister, still sleeping where he'd left her on their bed. Then he looked across the room at Ty Lee and Mai. 

"Didn't you say you would help me?" Jet asked. 

"This is stupid," Zuko said, reaching out, and undoing the ties on the pants Jet was wearing. Jet offered him a smirk, leaning in dangerously close to the other boy's face. The prince swallowed, and cowed a bit. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," Jet said, keeping his voice low and quiet. 

Zuko glared at him. "Don't try anything," he warned. 

"Anything?"

"Anything," the prince insisted, tugging the pants down Jet's legs. 

"Shame, you're in such a great position," Jet teased. There was a sudden pain in his thigh as Zuko punched him just hard enough to not make too much noise. "Ow," he complained as the new pair of pants was held out for him to step into.

"You're an ass," Zuko hissed, but his cheek was pinked again. 

Jet 4 - Zuko 0.

The waist band was synched and tied roughly around his waist, a bit too tight for comfort and he whined quietly about it, making Zuko roll his eyes. 

Jet 5 - Zuko 0.

Azula shifted in her sleep, murmuring softly, and Zuko froze with his hands on Jet's hips, eyes darting to the side so he could get a look at her without it being too obvious. In the second of distraction, Jet darted forward, pressing their lips together lightly.

Zuko gasped softly. Jet felt a spark flicker between their lips in the space between recognition and rejection. It almost hurt, little embers dying on soft skin but Jet always had been just a little bit of a masochist. He flashed a grin at the look of fury on Zuko's face.

"You can dress yourself!" The prince exploded, trowing the shirt in Jet's face, and storming back out onto the hallway. 

Jet laughed as the girls stirred groggily in their sleep, singing their early morning complaints over a choir of hushing fabric.

Zuko was really cute in that awkward kind of innocuous way Jet always found charming whether it be in friends or lovers. It sort of reminded him of Longshot in some ways, the silences, and the jumpiness about meeting a stranger's eye. Come to think about it that had been most of what attracted him to Li in the first place. 

He'd looked so out of place, gangly on that deck like he'd lost too much weight too fast, and so stubborn. Not much had changed really, but now when Jet got the chance to run his fingertips up Zuko's sides, his ribs weren't so pronounced. 

His own ribs were less obvious, he noticed, looking down at his own torso as he yanked yesterday's shirt off. He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't been hungry all the time, but he hadn't thought about food for over two weeks now.

Even now, in the early morning, with the sun now beginning to walk across the sky, he wasn't hungry. Not in the gut splitting painful way people got hungry when they starved. Hunger pangs hadn't felt like punches to the gut for a while and he hadn't noticed. 

Maybe, he thought as he slid into the new shirt, he should say something about it.

He stopped dead in his tracks there, shirt sleeves half way up his biceps. Was he really thinking about thanking a firebender, Prince of the Fire Nation, for kidnapping him and keeping him in captivity?

Zuko was so nice though. Mostly. Jet liked his mouth, and how warm his hands were, and the way his scar made him hard to read despite his complete transparence. And Zuko protected him from Azula, made sure to keep him away from the Dai Li. Maybe Zuko wasn't terrible.

He remembered the story of a small town that had been taken hostage by the Fire Nation before he was born, though. It had been captured by a General Sunli who had held the citizens prisoner for three weeks before Earth Kingdom troops had been able to respond.

By the time the army had gotten to the gates, the citizens had taken up arms to stand by the general, proclaiming him a righteous man. After the town had been secured for the Fire Nation the general had each and every man, woman, and child rounded up and burned alive.

Firebenders were not to be trusted. Maybe Zuko was a good person, but Jet himself was a testament to the fact that you couldn't stand in the fire without catching and burning everything else down with you. He could still hear the sound of the explosions that took out the dam, and Katara's voice when she begged to know, "Why, Jet?"

If only he'd known enough then to say, "Because I'm a firebender."

Those people had kind of deserved it though, preferring invading troops to the residue of war that had been the Freedom Fighters in conglomerate.

He found Zuko out on the porch where they'd eaten dinner the night before, sitting in quiet meditation. 

"If you're trying to sneak up on me, I should tell you it won't work," the prince said.

"I'm not," Jet assured him, mimicking his stance. The warmth from the other boy's body started to slowly seep through his clothes.

"Did I wake any of them?" Zuko asked.

"No."

"Good," he said. "We should spar."

"Shouldn't I do the thing? Meditate or whatever?" Jet asked.

"Don't bother with it. I want to beat the shit out of you," the Prince said.

Jet pretended not to notice his own dick twitch.

Mai found them trying to burn each other. Her narrowed eyes roved the deck as Zuko dispersed a particularly large fireball Jet had lobbed at him.

The Prince's eyes darted away to get a look at her, and Jet used the opening to topple him. Zuko hit the floor like a sack of brick, grunting as the air was forced out of him by the combination of impact and Jet's weight coming down on top of him. 

Jet crowed at him, holding his fists up in that now near-automatic threat he'd had firebenders turn on him so often. Zuko glared, batting at his hand as if there wasn't a fear to be had about fire burning through his skin. Not Jet's fire anyway. 

He felt an intense swell of hatred right then. How dare this boy write him off like he was nothing. He wasn't some tamed pet, he was a wild animal. His fist found its place in the air again, a gentle waft of smoke rising up off it.

He saw Zuko's eyes widen, the bad one like it was struggling to peel its lids away from the ball against all odds. Maybe the skin had kind of peeled away when his father had burned him. His father had burned his face off. Jet could still imagine the smell of it, what it would have looked like for that precious child's face to char up. He'd seen those portraits of a whole Zuko, a Zuko with two eyes and light in them last night.

"Gottcha," he said jokingly, dropping his hand onto the other boy's chest.

"Fuck, don't do that," Zuko hissed. He let Jet pull him back onto his feet, let hands linger on the skin of his wrist and waist and didn't comment as he turned to his girlfriend.

"You're lazy," was the first thing he said to her, and Jet rolled his eyes because what a smooth move that was.

For her credit Mai did the same. "Try: I'm normal. Not everyone spits fire and wakes up at the crack of dawn to buttfuck their boyfriend on the aft deck," she deadpanned.

Jet let out a low whistle.

"What is your deal?" Zuko asked, pinning him with his bad eye.

"Well she might not be a firebender, but that was definitely a burn. It's nice. Matches the other one," Jet joked.

Zuko’s nostrils flared which was ultimately the only sign Jet had he should move before the prince's arm came out for his head. 

"I'll bury you!" the boy bellowed.

Jet let out a full bodied laugh, and dispersed a fireball like it was nothing. Sometimes he loved being a bender. There was nothing like killing a fire. "Doesn't that sound like an earthbender taunt?" he asked.

"You sound like an earthbender taunt!" Zuko shouted, throwing another fireball. 

Just a few short weeks ago, Jet would have been afraid, but now the fire felt friendly when he touched it, and Zuko might have been annoyed, but it was obvious this was just playing by the way it burned. It melted into his hands, and responded to his instructions.

"That doesn't even make sense," Jet teased, lobbing the ball back at him.

Zuko batted it away into nothing. He didn't bother forming a retort, just punched another blast in Jet's direction. Jet put his hand out, and let it brake over his palm like warm water.

Of course Zuko had followed the blast, running at a full tilt, footsteps ghost quiet on its tail. He only came into view once the fire dissipated, and by then he was poised.

His fire warm hand caught Jet's forehead, momentum taking Jet down to one knee.

"Impressive," Mai said sarcastically. "Don't let him singe your fro, continent boy." 

Jet showed her his teeth, batting Zuko's wrist away, and standing back up. "What do you want anyway?" he asked, rubbing his fingers around his wrists to try and bleed off some of the excess heat that had bundled up under his skin.

"To see my boyfriend," Mai responded flatly. "I'm allowed to be here."

Jet decided to ignore her. Of Zuko's entourage, and this included Azula, Jet probably got along with Mai the least. 

Zuko adored her though, and maybe that was a pang of jealousy in his stomach as the prince turned his attention on her, drawing closer, mimicking her body language. He likely didn't even realize how open he was with that girl. Certainly more open than he was with Jet. And while that made sense, Jet's fingers still burned a little too hot at the tips seeing him smile at a joke she made.

Not even a joke. Mai didn't care to be funny. She just bemoaned life and Zuko laughed like she was a riot. It was stupid. 

"Are we done with practice for the day?" he asked, interrupting Zuko as he said something under his breath. Probably a sweet little nothing. 

"Um," Zuko said, attention returning to Jet as if he'd completely forgotten the other boy was there. Jet didn't like letting his pride bruise but there it was ugly and purple and it pissed him off. The prince deliberated a bit, making a regretful face as he pushed himself off the wall. "No I guess not. We should do some of those forms she was teaching us."

"It's not big if you don't want to. I mean you are busy," Jet said, gesturing to Mai. 

"Sifu might kill me though," Zuko mentioned.

Jet shrugged. "It's up to you. I'm sure I can run the forms on my own."

"I'm not letting a novice bender burn down my aunts' beach house," Zuko declared.

Jet shrugged at him again. "Didn't stop us from burning down a beach house last night. You know, why don't you guys go have fun, and I'll be lame on my own?" he dared, waiting to see what Zuko did.

The prince made an odd face, considering everything like he didn't understand the situation, like he was missing something. Finally, he turned his questioning look on Mai, and she nodded at him.

"Go do your kattas with the peasant boy, he misses you," she said then.

Jet made a huge show of rolling his eyes this time.

"Also," she added, "Tell him to keep his queer in check because we can smell the mating dance from here and dances aren't meant to be an olfactory experience but whatever."

“Whatever Azula’s told you is going on is a lie,” Zuko snapped. 

“Then why are you spending sll your time with him?” Mai demanded, “I thought when you came home I’d get to finally see you but we hardly spend any time alone.”

Zuko sighed. “I know that. Mai, I’m sorry. I needed to make sure he wasn’t going to burn the palace down or try killing someone.”

“Yeah,” Jet threw in, “I needed to be house trained.”

Mai frowned at him. “I just don’t get you,” she said. “Why are you even here?”

“I thought you’d figured that out,” Jet said, pushing his tone toward sarcastic. “Your boyfriend brought me all the way from the mainland _just_ to annoy you by fucking my face. Why? I don’t know. Maybe because I got so much dick sucking experience fighting the Fire Nation that I suck the meanest dick in the world. Because that makes sense.”

She had the sense to look abashed. 

“You guys hang out,” Jet insisted. “I’ve got like three million hot squats to do.”

Zuko was waiting for him on the front porch when Jet finally made his way back up from the beach.

“Thank you,” he said, “I don’t know how you did that but she’s finally believing me.

Jet shrugged. “Lying is easy. You just tell the truth in the most ridiculous way you can imagine and suddenly boom. They think it’s bullshit.”

Zuko gawked at him. “You do not suck the world’s meanest dick.”

“You ever had better?”

They found everyone else gathered around the table in the sun room. Ty Lee chittering with the old ladies as Mai sulked and attempted to keep a still half sleeping Azula's from using her plate of food as a pillow.

The food was good, nicely bland in comparison to what they served at the palace. He'd never eaten so well before the Fire Nation, and it killed him to think his enemy fed him more kindly than old friends so he tried not to.

They finished the meal with Zuko and Mai in love again, and Azula slightly more awake. The princess seemed to perk especially when Jet mentioned practice forms.

"I want to play," she insisted, as they made their way back outside. She followed, hugging her brother's arm for support as she continued waking up.

"It's just puppets, Azula," Zuko said.

She yawned loudly. "We should spar."

"Already did that this morning," Jet told her.

They found themselves back down on the beach. Jet hated sand, but the royalty seemed enthralled by it. Mai and Ty Lee set up blankets and horsed around in the water. 

As per usual, they started with small hand puppets, and slowly worked through what they'd learned so far. Zuko stopped bothering when Jet got to the life sized models, and drew up a fat elephant rat like the ones he'd seen in the palace. It looked alive on the sand for a few seconds, leaving tiny glass footprints behind it.

"That's pretty neat," Zuko said when Jet waved the puppet away. The Prince bent down, and picked a bit of glass out of the sand, turning it over between his fingers.

"Yeah, but it would have burned most other things. I gotta get that temperature down," Jet said.

"Why?" Azula asked.

"So I don't burn things," Jet told her. "Mostly me."

She rolled her eyes. "Only a novice burns himself."

"Whatever Azula, not like you don't have spark scars from when you were a kid," Zuko taunted.

She glared at him as Jet moved on to a dog. Zuko picked up a few of the little paw print glass discs it left behind, and skipped them into the water as Jet tried to force the edges of his fire doll smooth and definite against the rest of the world.

It sparked and Sputtered and he let it go.

"Is that hard?" Azula asked.

"Yeah," Jet responded.

"Doesn’t seem it,” she accused. 

“Alright,” Jet said. “Show me.”

Azula tossed her head. “This is stupid. Mai! Ty Lee! We’re going into town! Stupid and stupid here are going to stand around making puppets.”

“Cool,” Jet said.

Mai and Zuko waved almost reluctantly at each other as she walked away with the other girls. 

“You’ve got feelings,” Jet accused. 

“So?” Zuko demanded.

Jet rolled his eyes and they spent the rest of the day going doggedly over their homework, sparring cold, sparing hot, and then sparring with swords. By the time the Girls had returned, they had finally called it quits, and were rinsing the sweat from their bodies in the shallow waves.

The sun was beginning to set, painting the sky pink and orange and they were all beckoned up together for dinner. An idyllic evening in the Fire Nation complete with Azula insulting everyone over their meal.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So the next chapter is probably gonna be the last one. I might write a follow up fic but who knows.
> 
> Update: next chapter will not be last chapter. This should have between 18-20 chapters.

They left around noon the next day. Jet lounged at the railing of the little boat, ignoring everyone else, but feeling much less out of place than he had on the trip there.

Zuko and Mai seemed closer than ever after the beach. She stayed clamped to the prince's arm until they met port, and even a bit afterward. It was only when Azula went her own way that she let go, looking slightly reluctant.

Things settled back in easily. Jet watched Zuko order servants through unpacking their things, chatting about all the kinds of food he'd tried since coming here. The prince humored him until everything was done. Then, he called in a servant to dress him.

"Were are we going today?" Jet asked, excited to see it wouldn't just be classes. 

"I'm going out with Mai," Zuko told him. "I was wondering if you'd mind staying here."

“Right,” Jet agreed, trying to put on a front to keep Zuko from seeing how nervous that made him. The last time Zuko had left him alone, His father had become an immediate threat to His life and Azula had been the only thing that managed to save his ass. “Anything I can do on the old home front?”

Zuko offered him a dry smirk. “You’re a smart guy. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

So Jet did his best to do just that by starting with the locals. Rich people were too snooty to converse with, and the house staff had proven to be nearly in the same boat so Jet curiously followed the sight of guards down to the barracks. Eventually Azula and Ty Lee found him passing pipes On the lawn and waved him over.

"Are you having fun with the commoners?" Azula asked, picking up a slice of fish and placing it on her tongue.

Ty Lee patted the ground beside her just next to the blanket they'd lain their picnic out on.

"I guess," he said, ignoring the hint that he was being asked to join them. He wasn't the most fond of Azula. Mostly because she was a dangerous and unpredictable war criminal. Other than that, with everything he'd learned about her, she made total sense.

"Sit with us," the princess told him.

He regarded the both of them for a moment, before glancing back at the guards standing along the barracks wall. He hated taking orders. He hated listening to people, and it grated him that it seemed like that's all he'd been doing since he got here. Regardless of that he sat down, crossing his legs.

"How has my brother been?" Azula asked, reaching for a bowl and offering it to him. "Fire flake?" she asked.

Jet had a moment of intense deja vu, remembering how she had offered him a bowl of fire flakes right after- He reached out and took a pinch of them just to contradict previous events. A small smirk toyed at her mouth as she watched him drop the flakes into his palm. It occurred to him then that they could be poison. She was putting the bowl back down instead of helping herself after all.

This was a mistake. He should never have taken the food. Weren't there myths about not being able to leave after eating the food from some other place? Dammit. This was a game to her.

Ty Lee grabbed a handful and stuffed them in her mouth enthusiastically, effectively silencing that train of thought.

"He's been absent," Jet said. "We train in the morning with the master, and then he just screws off. He says that he's caught up on his studies and he canceled his other tutors. I'm not complaining. No one's trying to teach me how this means deer and that means horse but together they're stupid like me."

Ty Lee giggled a bit as Jet dropped a few fire flakes on his tongue. He hadn't realized until that point that they were just spiced pieces of baked rice. Azula gave him a soft simper.

"Where do you think he's been?" she asked.

"Bit obvious don't you think?" Jet countered, turning it back on her. He didn't play other people's games and the sooner she learned that the sooner they could cut the shit. "For that matter, how's Mai? You two seeing a lot of each other lately?"

The Princess' good humor evaporated in a second, and she fixed him with a cold glare.

"Your brother's an asshole," he added, swiftly diffusing the tension. A quick disparaging comment ragging on the bottom rung in the hierarchy ladder of her family and Azula was mollified as easily as a baby with candy. He figured it made her feel as though he stood in solidarity. 

"Isn't he though?" she asked. "It's like he doesn't even understand how property works." 

Jet saw Ty Lee wince minutely out of the corner of his eye. Azula didn't seem to notice at all.

"I've been trying to think of a suitable punishment for the two of them," she added then.

"Oh?" Jet asked.

"Oh," she confirmed. "You commanded a rebel faction back in the Earth Kingdom didn't you?"

"Yeah," Jet told her, not really sure where she was going with this.

"How did you discipline your men?" she asked, eyes flicking up to his and making proper contact. She didn't meet anyone's eyes often, and Jet was glad she didn't because whenever she did he felt as if he were about to be flayed alive.

"I put them on time out," he told her. Little girls and boys not following orders needed to be talked to, and understood rather than forced. The most disciplinary action he'd ever taken against his "men" had been sending them away to let off steam before they explained what was going on to him.

Azula blinked. "You what?"

"I put them on time out. Look, there weren't any men left in our villages at that point. Everyone who could fight was already off fighting in the real army. I took in kids that had gotten turned out of their homes, and I taught them how to help us fight back against the Fire Nation. I gave them homes and I gave them food. I trained them. But it's not like we were a real military force. We were more like a family than anything," he explained.

The look on her face fell almost completely. "What did you do after that?" she asked.

"I asked them what was bugging them, honestly. Kids are simple. They're like adults without all the bullshit. The most important thing to understand about other people is that there's always a reason they're doing whatever they're doing."

Azula took a sip of tea, and feigned disinterest rather transparently. "What's the reason?" 

Jet gave her a half shrug. "Depends on the person mostly."

"What's Zuko's reason?" she pressed.

"I'm not entirely sure," Jet admitted. "He wants people to like him. He likes Mai. Mai wants to be alone with him and he wants her to like him so he does what she asks?" he offered.

"That seems complicated," Azula decided, glaring at a bowl of soup on the blanket between the three of them.

"Meh," Jet told her.

"What's Mai's reason?" Azula asked.

"She's jealous of you. Of all the people in the world, you've got the best claim to Zuko. You're her biggest competition. She wants him away from you so she can have him because she feels like you'll get more of his attention," Jet explained. "Mai's simple," he added.

“And you?” Azula pressed.

“What about me?”

“What’s your reason?”

Jet honestly didn’t know what to tell her. To kill her father? To kill her? Her people? Revenge?

“Why?” she continued, “Do you want Zuzu’s attention so bad?”

Ty Lee’s face looked stricken as she floundered between the two of them.

“I don’t,” Jet lied easily.

“Oh?’ Azula said.

“I want his protection.”

“Ah,” Azula agreed. “I understand. My brother’s interest has uses to you and so now that you’ve lost it: Commoners,” she concluded, sending the guards a mock wave.

“I thought you were friends,” Ty Lee commented. 

Jet shrugged a single shoulder. “He did sort of kidnap me,” he reasoned. 

This seemed to dampen Ty Lee’s spirits a bit. “He seems so fond of you though.”

“Hardly,” Jet scoffed.

“Oh no,” Azula cut in, still picking casually at her food, “Callous Zuzu’s gone and hurt your feelings. Made you feel like you don’t matter to him.”

“I’m a pet project,” Jet insisted. “It doesn’t bother me anymore than being here does.”

“Is that true though?” Azula asked. Then she held out a plate for him, “Have a pickled egg,” she instructed.

Reluctantly, Jet took one.

“Zuzu loves them,” she continued explaining as Jet bit in it, regretting the choice instantly.

Gracelessly, he gagged, spitting the food back out onto his hand, hurling it off into the garden. 

Both girls sat there staring at him, utterly taken aback, a small smile creeping up Azula’s face.

“Zuzu has bad taste,” Jet justified.

“Clearly,” Azula agreed backhandedly.

“Look,” she said then, “Clearly my brother has left you as dejected as he’s left us,” at this she gestured to Ty Lee who mocked a forlorn expression and nodded her head, “So I think it would be most prudent for you to accompany us in his absence.”

“You wanna use me to try and make him jealous again?” Jet asked.

Azula offered him a surprised smirk. “Well did it work last time?” She asked.

“Better than it should have considering,” Jet admitted.

“Well good,” Azula said. “I need to keep my baby brother distracted so he doesn’t go getting any ideas about stopping the next invasion.”

“Next invasion?” Jet asked.

“Yes,” Azula said, examining her nails. “The one where we plan to demolish the Earth Kingdom entirely.

Jet could vaguely remember Zuko having said something about his father wanting to burn the entire Earth Kingdom to the ground Just before They left for Ember Island but he hadn’t been able to fully consider the words at the time between all the other events being thrown in his face. 

“Oh so that’s a real thing?” Jet asked as nonchalantly as he could.

“Of course it is,” Azula assured him, cold fire making the air crackle with electricity. “It was my idea after all.”

“Ah,” Jet said. “Like it was your idea to let Zuko take the credit for killing the Avatar.”

Azula stilled and the air popped around her. “You’re right,” she said. “That was my idea. You know,” she added, “I’m surprised to find you so wily for a peasant boy. It is exceptionally rare for people of your stature to amount to anything intellectually. But don’t think that just because you’re unique means I won’t put you out of your misery.”

Jet bit his tongue. Not mouthing off to Azula was so much harder without Zuko around to hold him back. 

“You know, if you’re ever faces with conflict in life, there are always options to diffuse it and move on with your day,” Ty Lee advised them.

“Yes, Ty Lee,” Azula said, “Thank you.” Then the Princess snapped to attention, “Pig-monkey,” she said, addressing Jet, “I want you to know,” and she held her hand out as sardonically as he’d ever seen anyone do that sort of thing, “that I respect your existence even if I pity you,” a pause, “And I’m sorry.”

“Wow,” Jet said.

Ty Lee launched into gales of praise even as Jet failed to take her hand, keeping the Princess from even noticing her apology had failed entirely. 

“So what are we doing today?” He asked when Azula had decided she’d received the right amount of doting affection.

“A bit of sneaking about,” Azula admitted. “I had a plan to call on your expertise,” she paused again, heating so the air singed around her, “Whether you agreed to it or not.”

“I’m down,” Jet said flatly.

“Good,” Azula told him.

What she wanted was a mock battle. She was to hide in a bunker underneath the palace and Jet was to test the security. How hot the drill was going to be he didn’t know but it wasn’t as if he had much choice. 

“What am I supposed to be?” Jet asked as he stood in a subterranean hallway with Ty Lee, “The Avatar?”

“That’s the point,” Ty Lee confirmed.

“Really?” Jet pressed.

Ty Lee nodded. “Azula says we should be prepared for anything. Especially with the Eclipse coming.”

“The Eclipse?” Jet asked but Ty Lee wasn’t stupid or trusting enough to tell him anymore and quickly changed the subject to a new contortion pose she was trying and before long, Azula had given him the start signal.

The door to the bunker was heavier than the doors in the palace, the kind of weight only benders could move with a system of complex pullies but Azula had instructed him that at no point would firebending his way in be a valid option, so Jet had to think clever.

Around the palace, Jet had come to notice in his time there, were vents where hot air poured out on cold nights. Some sort of heating system likely run on peasant bender’s labour. Ty Lee watched in fascination as he began prying a gate off the wall.

“Any idea why I’m not allowed to bend?” He asked Ty Lee

“Well, you’re a firebender so I figured someone had already told you,” the girl told him.

“Told me what?”

“The eclipse,” Ty Lee said, holding up a hand, “ Your bending. The sun.” Then she curled her fingers and pushed them out dramatically while flaring her cheeks, “Poof.”

“Huh,” Jet said casually, as if that hadn’t just been an epiphany level nugget of information she’d dropped on him.

“Yeah, cool, right?” She asked.

“Super cool,” he told her, words somewhat swallowed by the wrenching sound of the grate as it came free. “See ya on the other side.”

The squeeze through the pipes was difficult. They were tight already and he’d been bulking up with how much they fed him here but he didn’t let that deter him. He pressed through, reasoning his way through the maze to figure out which one most likely lead into the bunker in question and after what felt like at least fifteen minutes of struggle, his bet finally paid off. It was about the fifth grate he’d managed to peer through but he saw her clear as day, pacing in front of a raised dias below him.

There was no way to do it quietly so Jet braced himself, slamming his palms into the back of the grate so it slammed down, rattling it’s way across the floor. Azula was in stance instantly, looking around for the target but by the time she spotted him he was already swinging down after it.

The princess scoffed as Jet landed on his feet and drew his borrowed dao. “Of course,” she said, “You crawl in through the ducts like the muck-rat you are. Maybe I should do Zuzu a favor _right now_ and get rid of you.”

“You won’t,” Jet deadpanned.

“You think you can tell me what to do? I know your kind,” she said, pointing him directly in the face, “Idealists who fill his head with pointless sentiment. You’ll be his undoing with all your talk of the ravages of war.”

“You give me too much credit,” Jet told her and this made her falter. This lowered her hand minutely as she surveyed him. “Zuko doesn’t listen to me. I’m not saying I haven’t tried,” he placated as she bristled again, “but he only wants two things. Fire slut cunt and daddy’s approval.”

“That’s really what you think,” Azula said. “Then you really as as naive as you put on.”

Jet opened his mouth to say someting but she cut him off. “I challenge you! Agni Kai!”

“I can’t,” Jet lamented, scratching the back of his head.

“You must,” she insisted.

“I don’t know the rules,” he said.

“What are we doing now?” Ty Lee asked as she slithered out of the vent.

“Nothing!” Asula snapped.

Jet offered her a hand down which she took graciously. “What took you so long?”

“Oh,” Ty Lee answered holding her fingers up so there was a spot of air pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “I got a little lost.”

By the time Jet got back to Zuko’s room, it was well past lunch but he couldn’t find it in him to care. He wasn’t sure how he’d managed to bluff his way out of a one on one duel with Azula but he was truly thankful he had.

Zuko was wiating on the couch when he opened the door, a large, rectangular box perched across his thighs.

“What’s that?” Jet asked as he set the dai down on the tea table.

“Come with me,” Zuko told him cryptically before hurriedly carrying the box into the room they seemed to share now.

“I put the order in a while back but they took a while to be made,” He was explaining as Jet followed him in. The box was lying on the bed now, an obvious present to which the Prince gestured regally. “Open it.”

Jet already knew what was in the box before he followed the instruction but that could not prepare him for the actuality of it. They were perfect. A pair of polished, steel Shang Gou with leather wrappings on the hand grips and delicate inlays along the curves of each blade.

“I didn’t realize it until I was looking at them just now,” Zuko was saying as Jet lifted one out of the box gently, “But they don’t have the same hilt the dao do. Maybe you’ll be able to,” he trailed off here.

“Yeah,” Jet said softly, unable to keep the awe out of his voice. “Did you get yourself a new pair of those too?”

“Dao?” Zuko asked. “No,” he admitted. “Didn’t even cross my mind.”

Jet felt a raw chuckle force its way uo his throat because of course Zuko didn’t think to do something nice for himself. Didn’t think he deserved that kind of consideration.

“Don’t worry babe,” he said confidently, tossing the weapon into his other hand and pulling Zuko in under his arm, “Someday I’ll be crazy filthy rich and I’ll buy you the prettiest swords anyone’s ever seen.”

Zuko snickered and pushed him off.

“Have you thought about what I asked you?” Jet asked then.

Zuko’s face fell instantly. “I,” he began.

“Look,” Jet said. “I get that he’s your dad but there’s only one way this ends.”

Zuko nodded.

“So I need you to help me,” Jet insisted.

Zuko’s mouth set in a firm line. “I’ll try,” he promised.

It was all Jet really needed.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scroll down for art here

Planning with Zuko, plotting with him, felt more natural even than bending had once he accepted it. Any time they caught alone together between bending lessons and Zuko;s dates with Mai was spent going over it all. At meal times. As they sparred.

It was late at night when Jet woke up. Zuko had crawled out of bed and lit the lamp on the desk where he sat wearing a large robe over his pajamas.

“I’ve been to see my Uncle,” the Prince said, no doubt alerted to Jet’s conscience by the flicker of his flame.

Jet pushed himself up into a sitting position against the head board, watching Zuko’s face dance in the darkness.

“He sent me a message that lead me down to the bone catacombs where I found my Grandfather’s diary. It told the story of his friendship with the previous Avatar, Roku. The text is proof by confession that Sozin killed the Avatar. And when I confronted Uncle, he told me he’d sent it because I needed to know my great grandfather’s fate. Not Sozin’s, but Roku’s. He told me that my mother was-“ the Prince stopped short. “I’ve shamed him so. I’ve shamed myself. I’ve even shamed you,” he concluded.

Jet rolled his lips together, trying to keep himself as calm and level as he kept the meditation candles while Zuko spoke, trying to listen.

“I brought you here to enlighten you to the glory of the Fire Nation. To show you the other side of the curtain but the truth is, I only knew how to show you the dirtiest and most shameful parts. And all the while, as I made you comfortable, told you everything would be okay, luered you into a false sense of security, I was inadvertently helping my father plot the destruction of your entire country. I’m ashamed to admit hoe long I knew the Avatar was alive before I told you, how guilty I feel for even agreeing with your plans. I don’t know how you can stand to look at me when my own Uncle can hardly manage it.”

“You want the truth?” Jet asked him.

Zuko’s face twisted almost ruefully but when he spoke what he said was, “Yes.”

“I don’t have a choice,” Jet told him. “You’re the only person I have even a vague chance of being able to trust. I don’t know about your uncle but I know I’m not strong enough to make it home in one piece all by myself. If I want to see my friends again, you’re my only bet.”

Zuko nodded, “Right,” he said bitterly.

Silently, Jet returned the gesture, not knowing what to say.

“He liked you, you know?” the other boy told him

“Did he?”

“Yeah. He thought you had the right kind of ideas even if you were too hot under the collar from it. He wanted me to make friends with you- he pushed me to- but I don’t think he realized what he started,” Zuko finished with a hoarse and desperate chuckle. “I don’t think he would have approved of the kind of friends we’ve become.”

“Plenty of straight dudes have jack off buddies,” Jet reasoned.

“We’ve been more than that,” Zuko snipped at him. 

But the truth was that had only been very occasional and Jet didn’t bank on unreliable resources. He reached across the gap between them and pulled Zuko close to speak directly into the Prince’s mouth, let the other boy taste his fire. “Do you want to be more than that?” He asked.

Zuko stiffened and blushed. “After the eclipse,” he said, “I’ll be a traitor all over again. None of it will matter.”

“None of it?” Jet asked.

Zuko was the one who closed the distance, pressing his lips up into Jet’s. His weight felt heavy starting up and away from the desk, lurching into Jet’s space. Jet reached up and slid a hand across the Prince’s waist, digging his fingers into the loose fabric to tug the other boy down on top of him. There was a gasp, a hushing of fabric and he’s spun Zuko onto his back where the Prince sprawled prone, caught up in the excess fabric.

“Not your father?” Jet asked.

Zuko looked at him, the firelight trembling across the gold of his eyes, face uncertain. “No,” he said.

Jet leaned his weight onto his own arms, holding himself over the other boy, “Not your sister?” He pressed and Zuko’s breath came haughty from his mouth.

“No,” the Prince insisted.

The room went quiet. They stared at each other, eye to eye, something smoldering between them in the darkness as Jet bowed forward. 

Zuko’s breath hitched against his ear as he whispered, “Not your _honor_?” 

“No,” the Prince said.

Jet felt a satisfied smile tug at the corners of his lips, “Then I own you,” he hissed.

Underneath him, Zuko made a desperate sort of keening sound. His fingers lurched up into the soft silk of Jet’s shirt, tugging on the arms. “Please,” he begged.

Well fed as he was, Zuko had made something of a complete transformation from the scrawny kid Jet had seen on the docks. His chest and arms had filled out enough that he now looked as formidable as he always had been, panting, sprawled across the bed, cock leaking against his stomach while Jet railed him.

“You’re _my_ family now,” he insisted over and over, and over and over Zuko said “Yes.”

When Jet woke next, he was alone. Dawn, he could feel, was still a few hours away, but Zuko had already dragged himself out of bed, leaving in his wake a cold and empty nothing on the mattress. Curiously, he summoned a flame to life against his palm and held it out before him.

Zuko had left the bedroom door open. The sitting room was empty, silent and still, but a light eaked out from under the door to the room Zuko had supposedly moved himself into. Careful not to reveal his own presence, jet banished the fire in his grip and gently pushed the door open just a crack.

Inside, he could see Zuko by lamp light. The Prince had stripped his shirt off and sat in the center of the floor in the midst of some ritual preparation Jet had no hope of understanding other than in the magnitude of its importance, of Zuko’s need for privacy and silence. This was a time to wait. They were on the eve of entering what seemed like an unending war. 

For the first time, Jet found himself alone in the lead up to battle. Unable to sleep, he sat himself down in front of his meditation candles and focused on keeping the flames level, keeping his breath moving. It was something like sleeping, he thought, it’s own kind of rest. A way, at least, to pass the time.

When Zuko called him to breakfast, the light had only just begun breaking on the horizon. 

“No lesson today,” he said staunchly to his coconut curry.

Jet nodded. Words seemed far way from them both. Almost unimportant in the face of the feeling on the air as the eclipse drew near. Like the sun knew it was coming and shone oddly brighter, more fervently in it’s panic. 

Zuko’s hands were shaking on his chopsticks. 

“You’re not having second thoughts are you?” Jet asked.

The Prince put the bite he’d been about to take back onto his plate. “I’m resolved to do what I must.”

“And that is?”

“Protecting the world from my family,” Zuko said bitterly.

Jet nodded.

“They’re beginning evacuations already,” Zuko pressed on as if he hadn’t said anything treasonous at all. “Standard Invasion procedure. Azula’s keeping her suspicions under wraps. Likely seeding misinformation about the whereabouts of my father’s bunker.”

“Sneaky but effective,” Jet observed, picking through a number of fried potato buns, looking for the crispiest one.

“After breakfast, we’ll begin heading down into the tunnels.“

“Right,” Jet said around the bun in his mouth.

It was a long walk so he made sure to pick clean the bones of some koala-la,b mutton while Zuko fished the vegetables out of a noodle dish. He’s spent so much time pouring over the maps the Prince had provided that he could see the labyrinth of tunnels as if it had been carved into the backs of his eyelids.

When Zuko finished eating, they parted ways to dress themselves. The Prince had provided him with a set of light traveling clothes and a heavy belt on which to hang his shang gou. They paired nicely with the boots he’d been given a while back. Almost too nicely. Looking in the mirror, he got the distinct feeling that if the person he was now had walked through his forest back then, he certainly would have killed himself in a botched robbery. Zuko joined him at the door to the hallway, hair hanging loose around his face. 

“I’ve written a letter,” he said. “I wanna give it to Mai before we leave. She has a right to know why I’m abandoning her again.”

“Will she even be up here?” Jet asked.

“No,” Zuko said quickly, shaking his head so his hair hung in his face. “Her and her family should already be down in the catacombs.”

Jet couldn’t help the mean spirited laugh that took him then. “Break up by letter,” he managed, “Classic.”

But of course between the stress of planning, the prospect of his future living once more in exile, and the fear of facing his father again, Zuko was wrung a little thin. “Well what else would you have me do?!” He demanded.

Jet had no time to respond before thePrince had stormed out the door. 

“I’m ready,” he said, voice even more hoarse than it usually sounded.

They walked side by side, the only company either of them was likely to have for who knew how long after this. It would be exile surely for both of them, Zuko the moment he spoke out against his father, Jet the moment he set foot back on Earth Kingdom soil dressed like he was, bending fire. But it would be an exile together. Whatever issues lay between them had to be set aside now. Survival dictated.

Zuko didn’t hesitate in a single step, their fire dimming with each as they sank deeper and deeper underground, until the moment came that it went out entirely. They stood there, facing each other before the grate that would lead Jet inside.

“Good luck,” Jet bid.

Zuko offered him a humorless smile, a bad attempt at confidence forced onto his face. “Thanks.”

Again, it was a tight fit, inching his way through the steal bowels of the palace until he heard them. Zuko’s voice echoed hoarse but sure up into the vents. Jet inched along until he could see them down below.

The Fire Lord stood statuesque on his plinth, towering over the Prince even as the boy held his swords threateningly in front of himself.

“For so long I wanted you to love me. To accept me. I thought it was my honor that I wanted but really I was just trying to please you. You, my father, who banished me just for talking out of turn. My father who challenged me, a thirteen year old boy to an Agni Kai. How can you possibly justify a duel with a child?”

Jet took a deep breath but his empty veins refused to stoke.

“I was to teach you respect,” the Fire Lord said.

“It was cruel! And it was wrong!” Zuko insisted.

Jet put his feet down on the grate and steeled his legs.

“Then you’ve learned nothing!” Ozai hissed.

There was a huge clattering as Jet forced his legs down and out. The grate fell from the ceiling, striking the Fire Lord on the backs of his shoulders. 

“I’ve learned everything!” Zuko shouted as Jet dropped from the ceiling. 

He hit the Fire Lord knees first, forcing the man to the ground, then rolled off the plinth to the side and drew his weapons. They attacked at once, moving together, blades flashing as Ozai shouted for his guards.

There was a hammering of boots on the ground but Jet was quicker, he was already back up on the platform, his hooks in Ozai’s robes reeling the man in. The guards arrived just as Jet’s blade slid up to the Emperor’s throat.

“Stand down!” He shouted. “Don’t doubt I’m crazy enough to do it!”

The guards scrambled, dropping their weapons and their ranks in attempt to satisfy him.

The Fire Lord made a hissing sound, low in his throat. “You,” he said. “I should have known you’d poison the boy against me.”

The armor around them clanked to a silence. 

Jet chuckled. He could feel the pulse under his blades, feel his own desire to stop it. “Alright, listen up,” he said to the guards, “You’re gonna let the Prince and I pass. And you’re not gonna follow or I do a little redecorating in your favorite color. On your feet, _Fire Lord_”

Ozai grunted as Jet kicked him. The man put on foot underneath him and stopped.

“Jet,” he said, surprising Jet into silence at the thought the Fire Lord knew his name, “The Earth King Has Invited You To Lake Laogai.”

He felt so honored.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is very possible if not Likely that I will come back to this AU and finish it off. There are some details here left unexplained that I’m going to leave open for a sequel that begins in the Boiling Rock episode.
> 
> Legit sorry that these last two chapters are rushed and hardly betaed at _all_ but I’m between like three comissions I’m working on right now and they need priority lmao. I’d like to consider this 190 page equiv a collaboration between me and myself and I’m planing to retool it when I have time so stay tuned if you enjoyed it.

The world seemed to shift slightly to the right, as though Jet was sitting to the side of reality. He could see the room as though he was spying through a very distant keyhole. See that the steel he’d had on the Fire Lord’s throat was slipping, that he was loosing his grip. 

“Do your duty,” the Fire Lord said in that cold voice he had and Jet could feel the edges of his bones grind against each other, jitter and slip as he responded, “Kill the Crowned Prince.”

Something was wrong and he could feel it. There was a great hushing sound, something similar wind, rushing in and out as though a great pair of lungs was heaving on either side of his ears. The pin prick of His vision slid to Zuko. 

The Prince stood there, eyes wide. His mouth was moving as though he was saying something but Jet couldn’t hear him over that wind. 

“Kill him!” The Fire Lord insisted. And the wind rushed louder.

It came faster and louder and he could feel the spark it set alight. Like kindling on the forest floor. It caught and the air or that wind stoked it as though it was blown from some sort of billows. It started warm and grew quickly hot. Like a boiling pot reaching its limit. 

Distantly, he felt his skin prickle under the heat. He felt it sweep across him, rolling up his body as though he were a column. Someone was screaming but it wasn’t Zuko. It wasn’t the guards, still standing there unarmed and shaking in their boot. It wasn’t the Fire Lord who had crouched down and brought his arms in.

Jet lurched toward him, set on his purpose, sure it was the only purpose he had ever held. Kill the Fire Lord. The air crackled around them, hot and dry, charged with static as Ozai’s fingers swept up.

The impact was sudden. From the left. Zuko slammed into him like a sledge hammer, staggering him into the tapestry on the wall so that it went up in flames. The lights seemed to dim, flicker, brighten and then dim again. And the sound. Like an explosion. The world rang as he staggered back onto his feet.

Zuko was gone. Half the guards had rushed toward the Fire Lord, laying prone on the floor. The rest were inching toward him, hands groping the air, palms steaming. Jet could still hear the screaming, still feel the heat.

The guards were shouting something but it was drowned out by the roar of it all. It welled up along the line of his throat and out his mouth like hot bile that coursed down along his skin. Instinctually, he lashed out at them with the hooks of his shang gou. He’d been training to fight Fire Nation soldiers all his life. Beating them back was muscle memory.

“Stop,” the Fire Lord was yelling. But he couldn’t. He could stop nothing. He watched like a passenger as his body ran its own rampage through the room. 

He smashed through faceplate after faceplate, arms wild, spreading fire to whatever he touched until a sudden weight fell over him, eclipsing the light, pressing him down into the floor. He could still hear the screaming, louder than ever, and feel hands hit his back from all sides as though through some thick fabric. The last thing he was aware of was the smell of dirt and earth.

“Good morning, hog-monkey,” Azula was saying.

Jet was very cold. It felt like he’d been laid out over a sheet of metal and pinned down like a bug on a board. “Where am I?” He asked, surprised to find how hoarse his voice was. Like he hadn’t spoken for weeks.

Azula tittered gleefully at his shoulder and he craned his head around to see her peering down at him, “Wherever I want you to be, sillyhead,” she said. “I don’t expect you to remember. The Dai Li agents in my employ have informed me what they’re doing to you is very taxing. Memory loss is a common side effect.

“Where’s Zuko?” Jet demanded but Azula only yawned. 

“I’m sorry, I don’t meant to be rude,” she said sardonically, “It’s just that we’ve had this conversation a hundred times at least.”

“Where’s Zuko?!”

He could hear her tongue click moist in her mouth. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. You already know the answer after all.”

“Where is he?!”

Azula sighed, laying her forearms along the table he;d been strapped to so they were at eye level. “It seems my darling brother abandoned you,” she said.

Jet had a terrible sinking sensation in his stomach. “No,” he said.

“I’m afraid so, continent boy,” Azula assured him. “Zuzu’s back on the continent and you’re still here. With me. That was our deal after all.”

“Your deal?!” Jet demanded. The fire in his stomach snapped violently and he made a vain effort to wrench himself up off the table but failed.

“Come on, Jet,” Azula crooned. “You already know all this. I’ve told you a hundred times.”

“I don’t believe you!” He insisted. 

Azula pushed herself back up to her full height and offered him a single half shrug. “Suit yourself,” she said, “But sooner or late you’ll have to accept the truth.”

“Or the lies you tell me,” he bit.

“Maybe.”

The air around them was entirely still, entirely silent. The only movement came from Azula and the eerie fire burning within her. His wrists felt raw as if he hadn’t been let out of his bindings for hours but that didn’t keep him from straining.

“Jet,” she said, “Listen. I understand Zuzu is a traitor. All of us are reeling from it. Even Mai. And you must be the most effected. He was all yo had after all, wasn’t he? Your only protection? You told me that once,” she assured.

“It seems though that maybe that protection was just a bit unreliable. Classic Zuzu.”

“I’m not buying this shit!”

“It’s the truth,” she insisted.

“No!”

“You fought the Fire Lord together,” she told him and he could almost see the events playing out as she did. “And you almost had him too but then he said the magic words and everything went just a bit blank. He almost had you under his total control,” he she paused, slow footsteps marking her movement across the metal floor, “Until he told you to kill Zuzu. And then you just lost it, didn’t you?”

He could remember. He could almost see the distant events. 

“You went up in fire all over,” Azula said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bender loose control like that. No one could stop you. They all just had to keep out of your reach and hope you didn’t burn through too much until the Dai Li got there to put you out.”

“Maybe Zuzu was afraid of you,” she said. “Maybe he realized what a monster you are.”

“Shut up,” he snapped.

“You’re just like me, Jet,” she said. “The power inside of you isn’t something for anyone to control. It’s something wild.”

“Stop it.”

“It needs to be set free.”

“Stop it!”

“My father was able to do that for you once.”

“I said shut up!”

“Now it’s my turn, Jet. I’m going to fix you.”

——

The size of the room was consistent. That was one ting he could count on. When it was done, whatever would happen that day, he would be brought back here and the walls were always in the same place. They were metal walls, made of sheets and bits riveted together. Sometimes, when he was bored, he liked to run his fingers through the grooves.

Sometimes when he was bored he did nothing.

Fire was in the breath and he always had that. He could summon it on a whim. It kept him warm in the cold night and gave him something to do.

Most days, the men came in their green robes and spoke with him which was very calming. He looked forward to their visits. Other days, Azula was the one who came to call. This, was all together a much less pleasant affair. But every day, he ate and he slept in a bed.

Somewhat, he was grateful for that.

Today, his odd visitor was no Azula. She was another girl with long dark hair and mopey eyes. Jet found her somewhat familiar.

“You have to know something,” she was saying. “You have to give me something.”

He shrugged his shoulder and kept chewing on the twig one of the men in green had given him. 

“You spent every day with Zuko while he was here. You helped him plan an assassination attempt on his father.” She insisted.

“I don’t remember that,” Jet told her honestly.

She made a terrible, frustrated noise that sounded like metal grinding on metal. “You’re useless!” She shouted.

“Kt’s not my fault your boyfriend dumped you,” he bit. “In case you haven’t noticed, he sort of left me in the dust too.”

There was a clatter as the girl started up out of her chair. “That’s bullshit, Jet! You were the one he wanted to take with him!”

“But he didn’t,” Jet reasoned.

“Will you at least be honest with me?” She asked then, gripping the back of her chair until her fingers went white as sheets. “If I ask you will you tell me?”

“Ask me what?”

She turned her face sharply away so it fell obscure behind the curtains of her hair“Were you fucking him?”

Jet shrugged again. “Sort of,” he said.

She threw her chair to the floor as she left.

Every day, he ate. Breakfast lunch and dinner. Food. Food on a schedule. He couldn't remember what hunger felt like. It wasn’t something he thought about and every day he had less of a reference with which to even notice that fact.

Three times a week, or what they told him was a week, he was brought out on the solitary yard all alone and drilled hot for eight hours. Then they;d take him back inside, feed him, and lock him away. When he asked Azula about it, she said it was the moulding process. She said they were tempering him.

“Someday,” she said, “When you’re ready, I’ll let you go and then you’ll be able to make my traitor brother pay for what he did to you.”

Jet thought about Zuko a lot. Every morning, as the sun rose out of his sight, he thought about Zuko. About Li. How much he hated him. How good a fuck he’d been. How good it would be to choke the life, the fire, out of his lungs. How much he missed him.

Someday, they would both be ashes and then maybe they would have peace.

The room was too small. Not enough room to pace. There were times it felt like the walls themselves stole the air from his lungs and it was all he could do to lie there, to breathe steady, keep the flame level and balanced.

There was no way of knowing how long he’d been there. He had no way to mark the time. At first he’d tried scorching its passage into the metal, but every day when he woke, it had been buffed clean. Eventually, he gave up. Like he’d given up on the idea that Zuko would come back for him.

He waited. He ate. He trained. He slept. He met with Azula who marked his progress. Nothing changed. The room was a consistent size. 

“You don’t look very happy today, Jet,” the man in green said.

“I guess that’s because there’s no very much to be happy about,” Jet answered.

“That’s a shame,” the man said. “This is supposed to be a happy place.”

Jet sighed. “Yeah, I know. I just miss Smellerbee.”

“Smellerbee betrayed you.” The man explained calmly. “She and Longshot left with Prince Zuko.”

There were days he was just angry. The sun would rise beyond the metal and stoke the fire in his gut and he’d scream without stopping for hours and hours, trying to burn his way through the walls or the floor. Futile effort. Azula told him it was good practice.

She liked it when he practiced. She told him he was doing well. “Impressive,” she’d say. “You’re moving along quickly.”

“Not quickly enough,” he told her.

She clicked her tongue at him disapprovingly. “Jet,” she said, almost sweetly and again he got that feeling he couldn’t trust her, “I know it’s frustrating but you have to understand. You’re out bending Zuzu by now and he’s been training his whole life. I’m certain that when you meet again, you’ll be ready for it.”

But the time kept inching past at a glacial pace.

He was in the room, he was taken out for practice, he was in the room, the men in green came, he was in the room, Azula came, he was in the room. It seemed endless.

“You must be so lonely,” Azula crooned one day during one of her visits.

“Not lonely enough to enjoy my time with you,” he snapped. These were the times she got violent, when he spoke back. She reached out and grabbed a handful of his hair.

“You are blessed to be in my presence,” she hissed.

Jet blinked tears out of he corners of his eyes, “Sure,” he said and she smiled. Her grip loosened and she pulled back.

“Regardless,” she said, “I think you’re nearly ready, and I wanted to give you a little test.”

“What sort of test?” He asked.

“Perhaps it’s time you joined the General Population,” Azula said.

“You’re letting me out?” Jet asked.

Azula smiled, “In a way,” she said.

The next day, guards came, they told him to pack all his things, the meager belongings he’d been gifted by the Princess, a pillow, a blanket, and lead him out of his tiny cell down a series of stairs and metal walkways to another cell where they told him to put his things and onward onto a yard.

The yard was just as metal as the rest of everything, but it was filled with people, all of them wearing the same monotone red clothing he was.

One of the guards stopped him before opening the gate, explaining something he didn’t care to listen to and then he was on the other side, looking at everyone else.


End file.
